Daily Articles

Homeland Security’s Multibillion-Dollar Comedy Show

by James Bovard October 1, 2017

After the 9/11 attacks, Congress and the Bush administration pretended that unlimited federal spending was one of the best ways to thwart terrorist threats. In 2002, Congress created the Homeland Security Department (DHS), sweeping some of the most inept federal agencies, such as the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), into the new mega-department. Congress also ...

What Americans Should Know about the Constitution

by Laurence M. Vance October 1, 2017

Having just finished reading a new biography of H.L. Mencken, I was intrigued when I discovered that the Washington Post had an online section about politics called “Monkey Cage.” It was Mencken who said, “Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.” “Monkey Cage’”s mission “is to connect political scientists and the political conversation by ...

Slavery and Segregation Were Federal Programs

by David S. D'Amato October 1, 2017

Americans are afflicted with a “collective amnesia” that surrounds the subject of segregation, complacently assured that it was, if anything, a “minor factor” in the striking wealth gap that today divides white from black Americans. In his book The Color of Law, the Economic Policy Institute’s Richard Rothstein argues that not only have Americans forgotten the true legacy of ...

Felix Morley, Champion of the American Republic

by Wendy McElroy October 1, 2017

The American socialist Ed Sard is reported to have originated the concept of a “permanent arms economy” as a way to explain why America experienced a post–World War II boom, while World War I had been followed by recession. Sard concluded that the United States retained many of the characteristics of a war economy, including what today is called ...

A Bad Attack on Libertarian Economics

by George Leef October 1, 2017

Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality by James Kwak (Pantheon Books, 2017; 237 pages) There is a nasty genre of writing: books and articles that seek to build the case for socialism and interventionist government policies by smearing those of us who oppose them. That approach appeals greatly to Progressives who think that they are virtuous and their ...

Patriots and Protesters Should Take a Knee for the Constitution

by John W. Whitehead September 28, 2017

“Seems like in the past 15 years or so the idea of patriotism has changed some. More polarized, more tied to political or ideological views. I’ve never seen patriotism or the flag connected to either; I see the flag more as the symbol of a nation that allows the freedom to express those ideas. That alone ...

Albert Jay Nock on a Program to Restore Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling September 28, 2017

Let us ignore for a moment the bombastic boorishness of Donald Trump and his child-like name-calling about the tantrum-throwing hereditary boy-king in the totalitarian hermit prison called North Korea. And, instead, look at the bankrupt disaster called the Republican Party in Congress. What is left of this political party that has claimed to be the banner-holder of traditional “Americanism” and ...

The First Amendment Was Never Designed for the Workplace

by Laurence M. Vance September 27, 2017

Although he is no longer employed by Google, software engineer James Damore’s name will always be associated with that of his former employer. Google fired him on August 7 for writing a 10-page, 3,300-word memo (Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber) critical of the company’s diversity policy. Damore dared to argue that biological differences play a role in the ...

The Political and Economic Mystiques of State Power

by Richard M. Ebeling September 25, 2017

One of the great political mysteries has been the success of governments in ruling over societies with little opposition and resistance from the vast majority of the population, even when those governments have been brutal tyrannies and openly dictatorial in their control. This has been true, no less, under democratic regimes, as well, under which levels of taxation have been ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Vietnam War (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation September 19, 2017

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling join the conversation on Vietnam following the release of the Ken Burns documentary. Go to the podcast.

Ludwig von Mises on Collectivist Fallacies and Interventionist Follies

by Richard M. Ebeling September 18, 2017

For more than a century the world has been caught in the grip of social engineers and political paternalists determined to either radically remake society from top to bottom in collectivist directions, or to use various government regulatory and redistributive policies to try to modify existing society into desired “social justice” forms and shapes. Both are based on false ...

Let’s Make America Free Again

by John W. Whitehead September 15, 2017

“I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”—Osama bin Laden (October 2001) Ironically, during the same week that we mark the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we find ourselves ...