Daily Articles

What Ken Burns Left Out of the Vietnam Story

by Gareth Porter March 1, 2018

The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns (Knopf, 2017; 640 pages) The companion coffee-table book to the 10-part PBS series by Ken Burns, The Vietnam War, is so closely tied to the series that it’s left ambiguous whether Ken Burns himself is the co-author or not. Burns is shown as the ...

A Complete and Utter Failure

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2018

President Trump has now completed his first year in office. The Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate have now had a year to work with a Republican president. What is so significant about that is that it is only the fourth time since the end of World War II and the end of absolute Democratic control of ...

A Safe Space to Watch a War

by Michael Swanson March 1, 2018

The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (PBS, 2017) DVD. The documentary television event of 2017 was the 10-part PBS series titled The Vietnam War, directed by both Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. The series took 10 years and more than $30 million to make. Released last September, it garnered rave reviews all over the ...

If Police Don’t Have to Protect the Public, What Good Are They?

by John W. Whitehead February 27, 2018

“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”—Author William S. Burroughs In the American police state, police have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions ...

Public Goods, National Defense, and Central Planning

by Richard M. Ebeling February 26, 2018

The competitive market economy is a powerful institutional mechanism for bringing human ingenuity, energy and creativity to bear to improve both the material and cultural circumstances of multitudes of people around the world. Wherever relatively free market capitalism is operating, it succeeds in ending human poverty and brings about rising standards of living for hundreds of millions, indeed, now ...

What You Can Do to Advance Liberty

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 22, 2018

Please watch this 6-minute video by Jacob Hornberger. Ideas on liberty matter. They are the way to achieve a free society. If you like a particular perspective published by FFF, please share it with others, especially from: 1. FFF Daily: our daily libertarian commentary page. 2. Future of Freedom: our ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Case against Education (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation February 22, 2018

How much value should be placed on a bachelor's degree? Special guest Bryan Caplan, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, joins Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling to discuss his new book The Case against Education. Due to a technical glitch, the video quality of this episode is poor, but we ...

It Is Our Right to Have “Weapons of War”

by Scott McPherson February 21, 2018

The recent tragic mass shooting at a Florida high school has the usual suspects coming out in favor of gun control. Once more it is the AR-15 rifle – used by the killer to take 17 lives – that has come under fire. What kind of society, we're lectured, allows such weapons in civilian hands? Speaking on CNN on ...

America’s Toxic Cult of Violence Turns Deadly

by John W. Whitehead February 20, 2018

Mass shootings have become routine in the United States and speak to a society that relies on violence to feed the coffers of the merchants of death. Given the profits made by arms manufacturers, the defense industry, gun dealers and the lobbyists who represent them in Congress, it comes as no surprise that the culture of ...

Alfred the Great Saved England

by Scott McPherson February 20, 2018

During the violent centuries of the Anglo-Saxon invasion and transformation of England (400-600AD), the invaders brought their customs, political institutions, property, and way of life across the North Sea, replacing four centuries of Romano-British culture and rule with farms and villages modeled on those of Old Germany. A Heptarchy of kingdoms would rule England, their ...

Progressive Totalitarians and Nativist Nationalists in Our Midst

by Richard M. Ebeling February 19, 2018

America seems to be an increasingly politically polarized society. Those on the “progressive” political left often seem livid in their hatred and fear of anything and anyone who they label as being on the Republican or “conservative” side of the ideological spectrum. At the same time, many Republicans, and especially those among the supporters of the Trump Administration, see ...

Asking the Wrong Questions about Vouchers

by Laurence M. Vance February 15, 2018

It has been almost thirty years since Milwaukee began offering the nation’s first school vouchers. Beginning with 341 students and a half-dozen or so private schools, the voucher program — which allows low-income children to use taxpayer money to attend private schools — is today used by about 29,000 Milwaukee children at more than 100 private schools at an ...