Daily Articles

Why Ruby Ridge Still Matters

by James Bovard November 1, 2017

In the wake of violent clashes between protesters last August in Charlottesville, many people demanded a federal crackdown on suspected dangerous extremists. The federal government has previously carried out similar heavy-handed suppression efforts with disastrous results. Rather than intellectually purifying the nation, such efforts are far more likely to turn nitwits into martyrs. During the 1960s and early 1970s, Washington’s ...

Middlemen, Government, and the Free Market

by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2017

There are multitudes of ways in which goods are exchanged on the free market. The most common way that most people purchase merchandise is by shopping at a general or specialty retail store: Walmart, Sears, Kroger, Home Depot, Office Depot, Target, Best Buy, Walgreens, and so on. But in addition to retail stores, goods are also sold through auctions, ...

Sarah Grimké and Angelina Grimké Weld: Abolitionists and Feminists

by Neera K. Badhwar November 1, 2017

The American women’s rights movement was born in the bosom of the abolitionist movement. The 19th-century abolitionists and feminists Sarah (1792–1873) and Angelina Grimké (1805–1879) were the first female agents of the American Anti-Slavery Society, as well as pioneers of the American women’s rights movement. Their arguments for women’s rights anticipated many of John Stuart Mill’s arguments in The ...

Debauching the Currency

by James Cook November 1, 2017

Often people who make gloomy predictions about the economy have an ulterior motive. They want to sell a newsletter, a book, precious metals, or even storage food. In some cases they have no basis for their views other than an opinion. I like to think that what I write originates with the economic thinkers of the Austrian School of ...

Another Bloody American Century

by Matthew Harwood November 1, 2017

The Violent American Century: War and Terror since World War II by John W. Dower (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017; 184 pages) Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was livid. “In the dead of night,” the California Democrat wrote on Twitter in July, House Speaker Paul Ryan did something “underhanded and undemocratic.” He stripped out her bipartisan amendment to repeal ...

Gun Control Is a Losing Issue for Democrats – And They Know It

by Scott McPherson October 31, 2017

The high water mark for gun control in the United States was the so-called, but misnamed, “Assault Weapon Ban,” which was passed through Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1994. A CNN/USA/Gallup poll the year before found that 77 percent of Americans supported the ban. The law didn't ban “assault weapons,” but merely the importation of certain ...

Capitalism and the Free Society, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling October 30, 2017

Part 1 | Part 2 One of the leading ideological punching bags for well over one hundred years has been the ideas, institutions, and impact of “capitalism” on society. Think of something someone does not like in the world and the guilty party causing it is almost always the same – “capitalism.” But what is capitalism, and ...

Don’t Call the Cops If You’re Autistic, Deaf, Mentally Ill, Disabled or Old

by John W. Whitehead October 26, 2017

Anyone who cares for someone with a developmental disability, as well as for disabled people themselves every day in fear that their behavior will be misconstrued as suspicious, intoxicated or hostile by law enforcement. —Steve Silberman, The New York Times Life in the American police state is an endless series of don’ts delivered at the ...

Concealed Carry on the March

by Scott McPherson October 25, 2017

What a difference a generation can make. In 1987 crime in the United States was out of control. That same year Gallup asked Americans if they would support a ban on handguns, and a worrying forty-two percent answered “yes.” While almost half the country wanted to ban handguns, nine states were trying something different. “Shall issue” concealed-carry laws were passed, ...

The Libertarian Angle: End the Fed (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation October 24, 2017

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling challenge the orthodoxy that the government must manage the money supply. Go to the podcast.

If Political Candidates Advocated Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling October 23, 2017

In modern democracies, political cycles never end. As soon as one election is over, those in government office or aspiring to such an office are already running for the next election. Having recently attended a public forum of state-level candidates looking to the 2018 election, I wondered what a real friend of freedom might say if he was offering ...

Republicans for All

by Laurence M. Vance October 20, 2017

Last month, self-proclaimed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released his Medicare for All plan. Said Sanders, Health care must be recognized as a right, not a privilege. Every man, woman and child in our country should be able to access the health care they need regardless of their income. The only long-term solution to America’s health care crisis ...