Freedom Daily Archive

The Roots of America’s Financial Crises

by Martin Morse Wooster May 1, 2012

Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream by R. Christopher Whalen (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2010); 393 pages. It is obvious by now that the massive U.S. debt cannot be sustained. Last year’s downgrading by Standard and Poor’s of the U.S. government’s credit rating is but the latest signal that the Obama administration’s policy of an ever-expanding ...

The Evil of the National-Security State, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 30, 2012

Part 1 | Buy the eBook The two most important words in the lives of the American people for the past 60 years have been “national security.” The term has transformed American society for the worse. It has warped the morals and values of the American people. It has stultified conscience. It has altered ...

Opposing Imperialism Isn’t Isolationism

by Sheldon Richman April 26, 2012

When pundits and rival politicians call Ron Paul an “isolationist,” they mislead the American people — and they know it. They know it? How could they not? Ron Paul is for unilateral, unconditional free trade. He believes any American should be perfectly free to buy from or sell to any person in the world. In that sense — the laissez-faire ...

Forgotten Lessons from the D.C. Sniper Rampage

by James Bovard April 26, 2012

A decade ago, the Washington, D.C., area was traumatized by two guys who rode around shooting people from the trunk of their ancient Chevrolet Caprice. John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo have long since been convicted, and Muhammad was executed for the killings. But the media’s reaction to the official follies during that time should remind Americans to ...

The Road to the Permanent Warfare State, Part 12

by Gregory Bresiger April 26, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 |Part 12 |Part 13 There has never been a just one, never an honorable one ...

Olive Schreiner, Born Branded and Too Soon

by Wendy McElroy April 21, 2012

Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner (March 24, 1855 – December 11, 1920) lived with rare courage in a world where women were born into acquiescence. As the daughter of British missionaries to South Africa, she was also born into Empire, the Victorian Era, and racism. At the age of 18, Schreiner spoke with a native black woman who made an ...

Open Societies and Spontaneous Orders

by Richard M. Ebeling April 20, 2012

Popper, Hayek and the Open Society by Calvin Hayes (London/New York: Routledge, 2009); 284 pages. Friedrich A. Hayek and Karl Popper were two of the most influential and internationally recognized critics of totalitarian collectivism in the 20th century. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944) and Popper’s Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) helped change the intellectual climate at a time when ...

The Greatest Threat to our Freedom, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 30, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The most significant aspect of the case of Jose Padilla is not the horrific treatment to which he was subjected but the fact that what was done to him can now be legally done to every other American citizen. On May 8, 2002 — about eight months after ...

Obama Codifies Indefinite Detention

by Sheldon Richman March 27, 2012

In yet another reversal of his professed commitment to the rule of law, President Obama says he will sign the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which formalizes his authority to imprison terrorism suspects indefinitely without charge or trial. Where is the “progressive” outrage? George W. Bush and Obama both claimed that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) ...

Abolish the Postal Monopoly

by James Bovard March 11, 2012

Since the 1840s, it has been a federal crime to provide better mail service than Uncle Sam chooses to provide. The Postal Service has a monopoly on first-class mail delivery (with a limited exemption for urgent, courier-delivered letters costing more than $3). The monopoly has become more indefensible with each passing decade — especially since the government has been ...

The Road to the Permanent Warfare State, Part 11

by Gregory Bresiger March 10, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 |Part 12 |Part 13 In reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and ...

With Freedom and Justice for Some, Part 2

by Glenn Greenwald March 6, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 Revealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law — the supreme law — was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government itself. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the ...