Freedom Daily Archive

Deadly Policing in New York City

by Matthew Harwood December 1, 2018

I Can’t Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street by Matt Taibbi (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2017); 336 pages. On the first day of law school, Yale Professor Stephen L. Carter walks into his contracts class with a message: “Every law is violent.” He then proceeds to tell his students that they should be willing to ...

The TSA’s Secret Watchlist for Travelers Who Don’t Kowtow

by James Bovard November 1, 2018

“I need a witness!” exclaimed the worried Transportation Security Administration screener at Reagan Washington National Airport a few months ago. Because I had forgotten to remove my belt before going through a TSA scanner, he explained that I must undergo an “enhanced patdown.” I told him that if he jammed my groin, I’d file a formal complaint against him. ...

O Canada, and the Drug War

by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2018

The maple leaf — the ubiquitous symbol of Canada — may soon give way to the marijuana leaf. Joining the countries of Uruguay and Georgia, Canada has legalized marijuana for recreational use — with restrictions, of course. In late 2013, Uruguay officially legalized marijuana. It did not, however, leave things up to the free market. The government controls the marijuana ...

Three Jeers for Government Regulation

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 2018

The appeal of and the rationales for government intervention and regulation of private enterprise never seem to disappear. Time and time again, as soon as some theoretical argument for or historical instance of interventionism has been challenged and demonstrated to be false and a failure, another one soon arises to replace it. Truly, the price of economic liberty is eternal ...

“The Birth-Right of an American”

by Scott McPherson November 1, 2018

Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American.... unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people. — Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, February 20, 1788 On ...

Understanding the JFK Assassination, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2018

Part 1 | Future parts to be published in FFF's ebook The JFK Autopsy 2 A common refrain about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is, “I guess we will never know what really happened on November 22, 1963.” The reason people express that sentiment is that they have in mind what is called “direct evidence.” Given that there ...

Karl Marx and the Great Socialist Revival

by James Bovard October 1, 2018

Socialism’s popularity is reviving in America. A self-proclaimed socialist won the Democratic nomination for a congressional seat in the Bronx, and Democratic Socialist candidates are thriving in many areas of the nation. The Washington Post reported in July that it’s “been a good summer for the Democratic Socialists of America,” who have “never had more adherents or more clout.” ...

Canons of Libertarianism

by Laurence M. Vance October 1, 2018

The grandfather, godfather, and icon of conservatism, Russell Kirk (1918–1994), although he wrote lengthy philosophical treatises on “the six canons of conservative thought” and “ten conservative principles,” has largely been forgotten and is rarely invoked by mainstream conservatives today. Kirk was born on October 19, 1918 — a month before the armistice that ended World War I. That makes this ...

The IRA and Defensive Violence

by Scott McPherson October 1, 2018

Lo, we shall rise up. And then we’ll make the bugger’s eyes water. — Pink Floyd, “Sheep” In the 1960s, inspired in part by the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, Catholics in Northern Ireland began agitating for radical changes to a system they believed had been oppressing them for nearly half a century. Six counties in Ulster, in the ...

Civil Asset Forfeiture Suffers a Crushing Defeat

by George Leef October 1, 2018

There are a few issues where Americans on both sides of our political divide are in agreement and one of them is the wrongfulness of civil asset-forfeiture laws. Under those laws (which exist at federal, state, and local levels), a person can be deprived of his property merely because a law-enforcement official suspects that it might have somehow been ...

U.S. Policy toward Cuba Attacked America’s Freedom and Values

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 2018

The decades-long U.S. interventionist policy against Cuba failed to achieve its goal of removing Fidel Castro from power and replacing him with a pro-U.S. regime, similar to the pro-U.S. Batista regime that the Cuban revolution ousted from power in 1959. More important, interventionism against Cuba ended up attacking the freedom and values of the American people. During the Cold War, ...

The Latest Debacle Proves the Need for a Sweeping FBI Investigation

by James Bovard September 1, 2018

The reputation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation took another pummeling in June, when the Department of Justice Inspector General released a damning report on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s squirrely email server. Americans learned that the FBI had done backflips to exonerate Clinton and that a top FBI official had openly promised to “stop” Donald Trump from ...