Freedom Daily Archive

The Bundy Ranch Case Explains Westerners’ Distrust of Washington

by James Bovard April 1, 2018

The Justice Department was caught in January in another high-profile travesty of due process. On December 20, federal judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial in the case against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and others after prosecutors were caught withholding massive amounts of evidence undermining federal charges. Two weeks later, she dismissed all charges against Bundy and his sons. Navarro ...

Dress Codes, Discrimination, and a Free Society

by Laurence M. Vance April 1, 2018

A restaurant and nightclub in Washington, D.C. changed its dress code earlier this year after a complaint that it engaged in discrimination against non-whites. The incident serves as a valuable example of the place of dress codes and the practice of discrimination in a free society. Sneakers It was not the night before Christmas, but it was the Saturday night before. ...

Open Borders: Trade, Migration, Entrepreneurship, and Property

by Ken Schoolland April 1, 2018

For good reason people ask how nations can become more prosperous. Usually the start is “Why is there poverty?” But the real question should be “Why is there wealth?” Poverty is the natural condition of all peoples of the world throughout history. Only in the past couple hundred years have we seen an astounding rise in the amount of ...

Nightfall on the American Empire

by Matthew Harwood April 1, 2018

In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power by Alfred W. McCoy (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017). In August of 2007, David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States and director of the Government Accountability Office, delivered a speech remarkable for its plainspoken nature to the Federal Midwest Human Resources ...

Dismantling Roosevelt’s New Deal

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2018

In the midst of the congressional debate over Donald Trump’s tax bill, leftists accused Republicans of planning to dismantle Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. While the fear-mongering was baseless, given that Republicans favor the New Deal programs and philosophy as much as liberals do, the question naturally arises: Why shouldn’t Americans dismantle this almost- century-old socialist and interventionist experiment?   It is ...

Trump and the Right to #Resist

by James Bovard March 1, 2018

Since Donald Trump’s election, it has become fashionable for his opponents to use a #Resist hashtag on their social media postings. Public demonstrations have become more fashionable than at any time since the Vietnam War. Federal agencies are actively working to thwart the Trump administration; the Obama holdover chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau even refused to vacate ...

What Ken Burns Left Out of the Vietnam Story

by Gareth Porter March 1, 2018

The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns (Knopf, 2017; 640 pages) The companion coffee-table book to the 10-part PBS series by Ken Burns, The Vietnam War, is so closely tied to the series that it’s left ambiguous whether Ken Burns himself is the co-author or not. Burns is shown as the ...

A Complete and Utter Failure

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2018

President Trump has now completed his first year in office. The Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate have now had a year to work with a Republican president. What is so significant about that is that it is only the fourth time since the end of World War II and the end of absolute Democratic control of ...

A Safe Space to Watch a War

by Michael Swanson March 1, 2018

The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (PBS, 2017) DVD. The documentary television event of 2017 was the 10-part PBS series titled The Vietnam War, directed by both Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. The series took 10 years and more than $30 million to make. Released last September, it garnered rave reviews all over the ...

Pinochet’s Chicago Boys versus Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2018

Ever since the U.S.-supported military coup in Chile that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power in 1973, American and Chilean conservatives have extolled the economic policies that the Pinochet regime brought to Chile. The policies, which conservatives have long described as “free-market,” originated within a group of Chilean economists known as the Chicago Boys, who accepted governmental positions in ...

Donald Trump’s Authoritarian Opponents

by James Bovard February 1, 2018

President Trump has said and done many things to appall the friends of freedom. From Trump’s pro-torture comments to his praise of police brutality to his cruise-missile barrage against Syria to his threat to annihilate North Korea, there are ample signs that he scorns a freedom-and-peace posture. Unfortunately, many of Trump’s opponents are even more statist than the president. Marking ...

How to Make America Great Again

by Laurence M. Vance February 1, 2018

It has now been a year since Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the forty-fifth president of the United States of America. Among other things, he said in his inauguration speech, From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, ...