Freedom Daily Archive

Two Ways to Fight an Economic Depression

by Gregory Bresiger March 1, 2009

“There was a depression in 1920? Really?” That was the comment I received recently from a smart, usually well-informed editor. Yes, there was a depression. But it was over so fast that few people seem to have heard of it. Yet almost everyone knows about the Great ...

Real Change on Cuba

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2009

A good place for Barack Obama to begin his program of change would be U.S. policy on Cuba. The change would move America toward three important principles on which our country was founded: economic liberty, civil liberty, and a limited-government republic. Economic liberty First, the Obama administration should lift the U.S. government’s 40-year-old embargo against Cuba. Not only has the embargo ...

The Wizards of Washington

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2009

Remember that telling scene in The Wizard of Oz when Toto reveals the “great and powerful wizard” as nothing but a homunculus operating an imposing thunder-and-lightning machine? “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” he bellows, not knowing enough to quit even when he’s exposed. The government’s response to the current economic turmoil reminds me of that scene. ...

The Campaign-Reform Crime, Part 2

by James Bovard February 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 We saw in the last issue how the McCain-Feingold Act — the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) — sought to fundamentally change the American political landscape. Politicians did not allow the Act’s power to lie idle in the first presidential election after its enactment. The BCRA’s issue-ad ban — the peril that Justice ...

Regime Change: Promise and Peril, Part 3

by Stephen Kinzer February 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This article is a transcript of Stephen Kinzer’s speech given on June 6, 2008, at The Future of Freedom Foundation’s conference “Restoring the Republic 2008: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties.” I talked about unintended consequences. In the period immediately following the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (see Freedom Daily, ...

The Financial Crisis: 9/11 Redux

by Michael Tennant February 1, 2009

Perhaps the one bit of shiny interior in the black cloud of the financial crisis is that most mainstream conservatives, heretofore bootlicking worshippers of George W. Bush and the Republican Party, have come to realize that there’s literally not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties when it comes to their willingness to bail out their Wall ...

The Second Amendment: More Important than Ever

by Scott McPherson February 1, 2009

The day after the November 4 election, Gun Owners of America (GOA), based in Springfield, Virginia, sent an email alert to supporters. With the subject heading “Gun Rights in Peril,” the message began, “Based on his voting record in the Illinois state senate and the U.S. Senate, President-elect Obama will be the most anti-Second Amendment president in the history ...

The Socialist Bailout of Wall Street, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 During the recent presidential race, Republican John McCain accused Democrat Barack Obama of being a socialist, owing to Obama’s belief in using the federal government to “spread the wealth.” Obama, for his part, expressed surprise at being accused of being a socialist. Apparently, he’s always believed that he’s a strong supporter of America’s “free-enterprise” ...

What Greenspan Missed

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2009

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made headlines around the world with this admission: “hose of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief. Such counterparty surveillance is a central pillar of our financial ...

The Campaign-Reform Crime, Part 1

by James Bovard January 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 In 2002, Congress passed and George Bush signed the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). The McCain-Feingold Act was supposed to create an era of clean politics — uncorrupt, untainted, and far loftier than what Americans had experienced in prior decades. If the 2008 election proved anything, it revealed that politicians cannot be trusted ...

Regime Change: Promise and Peril, Part 2

by Stephen Kinzer January 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This article is a transcript of Stephen Kinzer’s speech given on June 6, 2008, at The Future of Freedom Foundation’s conference “Restoring the Republic 2008: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties.” Let’s look at the case of Cuba. It’s another case of American intervention gone terribly wrong. When the United States ...

Paper Money and the Constitution

by Rick Lynch January 1, 2009

Why do we have a Constitution? How and why did it come into existence? Just what, exactly, prompted the calling of the Constitutional Convention, which gave birth to it? Most Americans believe, logically enough, that with the passing of the British from the scene it was simply time to create a new government to take the place of the ...