Freedom Daily Archive

Hope Is No Substitute for Theory

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2009

Should libertarians hope that Barack Obama succeeds or fails in his presidency? The question comes to mind because conservatives got embroiled in the issue when their leading radio star, Rush Limbaugh, said he hoped Obama would fail. Some commentators thought that was a horrible thing to say. Radio stars need ...

Obama and Perilous Delusions of Democracy

by James Bovard April 1, 2009

When Barack Obama was inaugurated on January 20, there was euphoria across the land and millions of people cheered in the streets of Washington. Many people are convinced that American democracy has been redeemed and that the federal government no longer poses a peril to individual rights. Since the people’s choice is now at the helm of the U.S. ...

Arrogance and Torture: A History of Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington April 1, 2009

The mesh-wire cages, suitable only for animals, are empty now and overgrown, but they will stand forever as a symbol of the Bush administration’s brutal and destructive “war on terror” policies, implemented in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland on September 11, 2001. This is Camp X-Ray, the first of the prison camps at the U.S. ...

The Fallacies of Another New Deal, Part 2

by William L. Anderson April 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In the latter part of 1920, the economy fell into a deep recession, which lasted well into 1921. As Murray Rothbard points out, it was the last downturn in which the government did not play much of a role. Newly elected President Warren G. Harding openly said that government should ...

Spending Our Way to Wealth and Prosperity

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2009

One of the most ludicrous policy prescriptions issued by federal officials is the one that exhorts the citizenry to spend more money to get the nation out of a recession. That’s the key to national economic prosperity, government officials exclaim. “Go to the mall and shop,” they tell people. If people will just spend, spend, and spend some more, ...

The Madoff Scandal Exposes Government Failure

by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2009

A rule we can rely on to be unfailingly applied is this: No matter how much the government controls the economic system, any problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of freedom that remains. This of course is evidence of a rigged game. The government can’t possibly monitor and regulate absolutely every transaction that ...

Boundless Ignorance versus Self-Government

by James Bovard March 1, 2009

Modern democracy is based on faith that the people can control what they do not understand. As government has grown by leaps and bounds, “government by the people” has become one of the great fairy tales of our times. As the Founding Fathers feared, citizen ignorance often brings out the worst in their rulers. Contemporary ...

The Fallacies of Another New Deal, Part 1

by William L. Anderson March 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 As the financial panics on Wall Street seem to be never-ending, a lot of commentators are openly asking whether the United States will slide into something akin to the Great Depression of nearly 80 years ago. Certainly, there is real fear in the air, and at this writing, the current ...

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 ...