Freedom Daily Archive

Thank Goodness for WikiLeaks

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2011

WikiLeaks has released close to 400,000 U.S. classified military documents relating to the Iraq war. The American people, the theoretical masters of the government, were not supposed to see them. So, just as it was when the website released 77,000 documents on the Afghan war in August, WikiLeaks was roundly condemned. Unnamed officials in the Obama administration are reported ...

Misdefining Liberty

by James Bovard January 1, 2011

The definitions of liberty devised in ivory towers and elsewhere have a profound impact on political and judicial thinking. Regardless of how wrongheaded some concepts of liberty prevalent early last century may now appear, America’s legal structure is now based on those ideas. And that legal structure continues binding today’s citizens to the intellectual follies of previous generations of ...

Forget Reform

by Bart Frazier January 1, 2011

Reforming federal programs that have bestowed upon Americans a multitude of problems would seem to be a good idea, but it’s not. The problem is not only that the programs will never work no matter how much they are reformed, but also that what the programs do falls outside the legitimate functions of government. The programs need to be ...

Where Is the Tea Party Revolution on Foreign Policy?

by Stephen Kinzer January 1, 2011

America’s latest populist movement, which reaches back to revolutionary history by calling itself the “Tea Party,” helped shape the remarkable results of last November’s midterm election. Some dare to hope that candidates elected in that political uprising might help arrest America’s alarming decline. Others see the uprising as no more than a cover for the corporate power that lay ...

How Will the Empire End?

by Anthony Gregory January 1, 2011

Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope by Chalmers Johnson (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2010); 212 pages. Most Americans would very likely deny that their government is a global empire, horribly destructive to national security, liberty, and wealth. But whatever we call this U.S. system of ubiquitous military bases, satellite regimes throughout the world, ever-growing “defense” budgets, and an ...

Natural Rights, the Declaration, and the Constitution, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The Bill of Rights should actually have been called the Bill of Prohibitions because it actually doesn’t give any rights to anyone. Instead, it expressly prohibits the federal government from infringing the fundamental rights of the people. Our American ancestors understood that people’s rights don’t come from the government or from ...

The Neoconservative Obama Administration

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2010

President Barack Obama was far from candid when he announced the end of combat operations in Iraq in August — 50,000 troops and a large number of mercenaries remain — but in his speech he did nothing to hide his neoconservative outlook on the American empire. This was not lost on leading neoconservatives, who tend to prefer Republicans. William Kristol, ...

Defining Coercion Down

by James Bovard December 1, 2010

Coercion is the essence of government in the same way that profit is the essence of private businesses. The state can impose new prohibitions and restrictions, create new penalties, or impose taxes in order to finance benefits. It is misleading to conceive of politicians as offering both carrots and sticks: Government must first use a stick to commandeer the ...

The Physiocrats

by Wendy McElroy December 1, 2010

The Physiocrats, a group of 18th-century French economists, are often credited with founding Western political economy — the study of “laws” governing the production and distribution of wealth. The word “law” is not used in a legal sense. Rather it refers to a principle or governing rule, much as one might speak of the laws of physics. The Greek word ...

Property Rights and the Ground Zero Mosque Debate

by Eric Garris December 1, 2010

Amidst all the controversy over the “Ground Zero Mosque,” the most neglected issue is the key question of property rights. The proprietors of the land where the Islamic cultural center is to be built are its rightful owners. In a free society, in a capitalistic country, people are allowed to do with their property as they see fit. When ...

The Falling American Empire

by Anthony Gregory December 1, 2010

American Empire before the Fall by Bruce Fein (Campaign for Liberty, 2010); 219 pages. The very notion that America has an empire is most taboo. No matter the party in power, pointing out the reality of U.S. imperialism rarely wins political points. Our country, land of the free, won independence from the British Empire, defeated the Nazi empire, and ...

Natural Rights, the Declaration, and the Constitution, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Throughout most of history, it was a given that government had the legitimate authority to wield omnipotent power over its citizenry. If the king wanted a person’s land, he took it. If he wanted a share of its produce, he confiscated it. If he wanted to punish people for worshiping ...