Freedom Daily Archive

The Bogus Anti-Terrorist Crackdown on Financial Freedom

by James Bovard October 1, 2009

In the post–9/11 era, federal officials are treating cash as they would a suspected weapon of mass destruction. They have created legions of new restrictions and reporting requirements for citizens’ money. But the new controls have done nothing to make Washington any more competent at protecting Americans from real threats. Federal experts estimated that Mohamed Atta and the other 18 ...

Langdon, Stark, Bennington, and the Triumph of a Private Army, Part 2

by Scott McPherson October 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 At the end of June, Burgoyne struck south with more than 7,000 men: 3,700 British regulars, 3,000 German mercenaries, 470 artillerymen, 400 Indians, and approximately 250 Canadian and American loyalists, and with the optimistic hope of gaining more Indian and loyalist troops as they went. As his forces approached the ...

Keynes and the Assault on Savings, Part 1

by Gregory Bresiger October 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2  In the long, run we are all dead. — John Maynard Keynes, A Tract on Monetary Reform There are men regarded today as brilliant economists, who deprecate saving and recommend squandering on ...

The Supreme Court’s Attacks on Freedom, Part 2

by George Leef October 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom by Robert A. Levy and William Mellor (Sentinel, 2008); 299 pages. Bennis v. Michigan (1996) This case gave Supreme Court approval to ...

Ten Tenets of Freedom, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 This two-part essay discusses ten tenets of freedom toward which we must continue to strive in our efforts to restore freedom to our land. Part 1 of the essay discussed the first five tenets and this part covers the other five tenets. 6. Gun control It would have been more appropriate to have made the Second ...

Welcome to Post Office Health Care

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 2009

America’s health-care system has problems — all traceable to government intervention — but it could be worse. And if the so-called reform emerging in Congress is enacted, it will be worse. The nub of the plan is that everyone must have health insurance and that all but the smallest employers should provide it. If someone doesn’t have coverage, he’ll be ...

How George W. Bush Redefined American Freedom

by James Bovard September 1, 2009

George W. Bush is gone from Washington but his legacy, like an abandoned toxic waste dump, lingers on. Like President Franklin Roosevelt before him, President Bush helped redefine American freedom. And like Roosevelt’s, Bush’s changes were perversions of the clear vision the Founding Fathers bequeathed to us. What did freedom mean in the era of George Bush? In Iraq in ...

The Road Waiting to Be Taken

by Christine Smith September 1, 2009

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. — Henry David Thoreau Reading Friedrich A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, one is amazed that a book published 64 years ago could paint such an accurate picture of where the United States is ...

Welfare Corruption in the New Deal

by Jim Powell September 1, 2009

How likely is it that a big government-spending program — Obama’s or anybody else’s — won’t be manipulated by politicians pursuing their special interests? In two of his recent New York Times columns, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman claimed that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was free from corruption. Consequently, he thought it was likely that Obama, too, can have an ...

Langdon, Stark, Bennington, and the Triumph of a Private Army, Part 1

by Scott McPherson September 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Had we a standing army, when the British invaded our peaceful shores? Was it a standing army that gained the battles of Lexington, and Bunker’s Hill, and took the ill fated Burgoyne? Is not a well-regulated militia sufficient for every purpose of internal defence? And which of you, my fellow ...

The Supreme Court’s Attacks on Freedom, Part 1

by George Leef September 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom by Robert A. Levy and William Mellor (Sentinel, 2008); 299 pages. Americans like lists. Most often, we get “Top Ten” lists, but this book is a ...

Ten Tenets of Freedom, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 Even while resisting the steady erosion of liberty in America, it is important that we keep in mind an overall vision of what a free society looks like. For if people lose sight of the “big picture,” the risk is that they end up settling for — and even celebrating — an unfree society ...