Freedom Daily Archive

America’s Benevolent Bombing of Serbia

by James Bovard July 1, 2019

Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton commenced bombing Serbia in the name of human rights, justice, and ethnic tolerance. Approximately 1,500 Serb civilians were killed by NATO bombing in one of the biggest sham morality plays of the modern era. As British professor Philip Hammond recently noted, the 78-day bombing campaign “was not a purely military operation: NATO also ...

Americans Didn’t Need the Original New Deal

by Laurence M. Vance July 1, 2019

We have heard much this year about how much the country needs a Green New Deal to reverse the negative effects of climate change, ensure economic security, revamp the nation’s transportation system, restore damaged ecosystems, secure a sustainable environment, and achieve justice and equality. Overlooked in all of the analyses of the Green New Deal is that Americans didn’t ...

Learning Liberty and the Power of Principles

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2019

In The Constitution of Liberty, free-market economist and social philosopher F.A. Hayek, quotes in a footnote the famous nineteenth-century scientist Louis Pasteur: “In research, chance only helps those whose minds are well prepared for it.” What Pasteur was, no doubt, getting at is that unless the researcher already has been trained in the principles and methods of his own ...

Gun Ownership: An Individual Right

by Matthew Harwood July 1, 2019

First Freedom: A Ride Through America’s Enduring History with the Gun by David Harsanyi (Threshold Editions, 2018); 321 pages. In David Harsanyi’s First Freedom, an entertaining jaunt through the gun’s important place in American history, the nationally syndicated columnist notes that the first real attempt to institute gun control was New York’s Sullivan Act. The impetus ...

Attorney General Barr: Defender of FBI Snipers

by James Bovard June 1, 2019

Donald Trump’s second attorney general, William Barr, was widely praised during his confirmation process earlier this year. Trump hailed Barr as “one of the most highly respected lawyers and legal minds in the country.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Barr has “an impeccable reputation” and is “a man of the ...

What Would a Free Society Actually Look Like?

by Laurence M. Vance June 1, 2019

It is a common occurrence at sporting events. Someone is singing the U.S. national anthem — “The Star-Spangled Banner” — and when he gets to the last line of the first verse (although the song has four verses, the first verse is the only one that is ever sung), the crowd starts cheering and shouting after the singer utters ...

Adam Gurowski: Polish Champion of American Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2019

America! What a wonderful word. America! A word that has carried with it hopes and dreams, promises and possibilities; a new start and second chances. It has meant freedom, opportunity, and prosperity. Only in America! For many in faraway lands the word “America” still carries with it connotations of a better life, liberty, and enterprise. But what do these ideas ...

America’s Legacy of Regime Change

by Stephen Kinzer June 1, 2019

Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War by Lindsey A. O’Rourke (Cornell University Press, 2018); 330 pages. For most of history, seizing another country or territory was a straightforward proposition. You assembled an army and ordered it to invade. Combat determined the victor. The toll in death and suffering was usually horrific, but it was all ...

Trump’s “No Coercion” Sham

by James Bovard May 1, 2019

In his State of the Union address on February 5, Donald Trump received rapturous applause from Republicans for his declaration, “America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free.” But this uplifting sentiment cannot survive even a brief glance at the federal statute ...

Asking the Wrong Questions

by Laurence M. Vance May 1, 2019

In the 1968 presidential election that pitted Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey against Republican Richard M. Nixon, American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace famously quipped that there was not a dime’s worth of difference between the two major political parties. Since Wallace made that observation, we have had every conceivable combination of Democrats and Republicans in the ...

F.A. Hayek on Individual Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2019

The rebirth of a belief in and an enthusiasm for socialism and government planning among a noticeable number of academics, intellectuals, young people, and elected officials raises many of the fundamental issues surrounding freedom and command, market competition and political control. Once more, a call is heard for doing away with free enterprise, this time in the name of a ...

Afghanistan Exit: Swift, Responsible Disengagement, Part 2

by Danny Sjursen May 1, 2019

Part 1 | Part 2 Since the supposed end of the American combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014, the primary mission of U.S. military forces has been to train, support, and bolster the ANDSF (Afghan National Defense and Security Forces) in order to ensure their long-term success and ability to secure the country. This effort is at least sixteen ...