Freedom Daily Archive

Biden’s Atrocious Assange Prosecution

by James Bovard March 1, 2023

“A confident government that is unafraid of the truth embraces a free press,” proclaimed Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. But he was referring only to the Chinese government crackdown on Hong Kong journalists early last year. Unfortunately, the Biden administration continues rushing to destroy one of the most important truth tellers of our times. Julian Assange has been locked away ...

“Law and Order” and Libertarianism

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2023

The election year of 1968 was a tumultuous one marked by the assassinations of Sen. Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, urban race riots, college antiwar demonstrations, and a Democratic National Convention that saw the Chicago police and the National Guard have violent clashes with protestors. The 1968 election Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon (1913–1994) campaigned on a ...

The Great German and Austrian Inflations, 100 Years Ago

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2023

This year marks the 100th anniversaries of the great German and Austrian inflations that began with the coming of the First World War in 1914 and reached hyperinflationary severity following the war’s end in November 1918. While the German and Austrian inflations were particularly pronounced, all the belligerent countries in the conflict resorted to the monetary printing press to ...

Fed Up with the Fed

by Robert E. Wright March 1, 2023

The Federal Reserve (“the Fed”) began operations in 1914. Thus, many find it difficult to fathom an America without it. Yet as it conducts its own major framework review, everyone, including the Federal Reserve itself, knows that the Fed is unnecessary. Congress could abolish the institution and ...

The Roots of American Dysfunctionality, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 Among the best examples of the dysfunctional nature of American society are the mass killings that take place on a regular basis. As everyone knows, many of them occur without any rational motive. Someone just decides that he is going to go out and kill a bunch of people. Whenever one of these mass killings ...

Biden Weaponizes Hate to Win Votes

by James Bovard February 1, 2023

Historian Henry Adams observed a century ago that politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” President Biden confirmed this axiom in his raging speeches prior to the mid-term congressional elections. Throughout his career, Biden has relied on a two-step routine —first appealing to “our better angels” before demagogically vilifying his opponents. In December 2020, after the Electoral College ...

Republican Déjà Vu

by Laurence M. Vance February 1, 2023

The year was 1994. A Democratic president had been in the White House for two years. The Democrats controlled the Senate and the House of Representatives. House Republicans issued a document detailing the actions they would take if they gained control of the House. Republicans were projected to win big. A midterm election was held. A red wave then swept ...

The Life and Significance of F. A. Hayek

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2023

Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950 by Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger, (University of Chicago Press, 2022) People who knew Friedrich A. Hayek before he won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974 sometimes said that he went through bouts of depression that interrupted his research and writing. Some also said that he could be aloof and distant when ...

Fiat Money and the French Revolution

by Phil Duffy February 1, 2023

Weimar Germany’s hyperinflation is well known, as are more recent hyperinflations in Argentina and, most recently, Venezuela. Perhaps fewer people have heard of John Law’s Mississippi Scheme in France and the issuance of paper money that underlay it. And perhaps even fewer still have heard that the issuance of paper money by the government contributed to the French Revolution ...

How We Got a National-Security Police State, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 On February 26, 1993, terrorists detonated a truck bomb in the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City. While the bombing did not bring down the Twin Towers, as the terrorists intended, it did kill six people and injured over a thousand. That terrorist attack was no different in ...

The Federal Dietary Wrecking Ball

by James Bovard January 1, 2023

Politicians are hellbent on intruding further into Americans’ stomachs. In September, President Biden hosted a White House Summit on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. A vast array of activists gathered, waiting for Biden to mobilize Washington to open the floodgates to far more food handouts. But their fond hopes did not survive the opening moments of Biden’s speech. “Jackie, are you ...

Freedom of Conscience

by Laurence M. Vance January 1, 2023

Libertarian philosopher and historian George H. Smith (1949–2022), in his collection of essays titled Freethought and Freedom, incisively remarked that “without freedom of conscience no other freedoms are possible.” It is my contention that freedom of conscience is under attack right now — in the third decade of the twenty-first century — more so than at any other time ...