Daily Articles

Iraq and American Sniper

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2015

Last January the movie American Sniper was breaking box-office records and generating a national debate over the nature of war and how the movie depicts war. The movie revolved around Chris Kyle, a real-life U.S. soldier who had four tours in Iraq as a sniper and, in the process, set a record for the number of people killed by ...

Monopoly and Aggression

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2015

The concepts monopoly and aggression are intimately related, like lock and key, or mother and child. You cannot fully understand the first without understanding the second. Most of us are taught to think of a monopoly as simply any lone seller of a good or service, but that definition is fraught with problems, as Murray Rothbard, Austrian economists generally, and ...

Cops and Donuts Don’t Mix

by James Bovard April 1, 2015

On a Sunday morning early last summer, I was driving south across the Potomac River to a hike in Fairfax County, Virginia. The previous night the hike leader posted online a map of the jaunt. It looked like a typical suburban stroll until I saw a Dunkin’ Donuts marked near the start point. As the Food and Drug Administration ...

Realism versus Nonintervention

by Joseph R. Stromberg April 1, 2015

Foreign-policy realists have been around for time out of memory, but the unbearable follies of post–9/11 U.S. foreign policy have dramatically increased their prestige. A current short list of realists would include Andrew Bacevich, Steven Walt, Ivan Eland, and Ted Galen Carpenter (perhaps also Daniel Larison of American Conservative). These realists seem like sanity itself compared to our entrenched, ...

Rule by Illusion

by David S. D'Amato April 1, 2015

National Security and Double Government by Michael J. Glennon (Oxford University Press 2014), 272 pages. Americans have been taken in by an illusion, complacently believing that they live in a constitutional republic in which the rule of law is paramount and public officials are answerable to the electorate. In reality, however, an ascendant technocratic class of experts governs ...

Global Thug State

by Matthew Harwood April 1, 2015

Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World by Tom Engelhardt (Haymarket Books 2014), 200 pages. “A shadow government has conquered twenty-first-century Washington. We have the makings of a thug state of the first order.” No two sentences more clearly and disturbingly summarize what Tom Engelhardt’s Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a ...

The Libertarian Angle – Communism and the Cold War

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 31, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger discusses the hot topics of the day. This week: the national-security state's hardening during the Cold War. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast here.

Discrimination in Indiana – Private or Political?

by Richard M. Ebeling March 30, 2015

Discrimination has become a “dirty word.” It has come to carry the “politically incorrect” connotation of prejudice, hatefulness, racism, and cruel intolerance towards others in society. There is only one problem: which one of us does not discriminate? Indeed, everything we do reflects discriminating choices and decisions. The issue of discrimination has captured the headlines, once again, because of a ...

Dress Codes, Employment, and Religion

by Laurence M. Vance March 27, 2015

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last month in a case relating to dress codes, employment, and religion. The case, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc., is a good point of departure for how these things relate to each other in a free society. The High Court is expected to decide the case in ...

A World without the Welfare State

by Richard M. Ebeling March 25, 2015

We live in an era in which few can even conceive of a world without the welfare state. Who would care for the old? How would people provide for their medical needs? What would happen to the disadvantaged and needy that fell upon hard times? In fact, there were free market solutions and non-government answers to these questions long ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Welfare-Warfare State (video)

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 24, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger discusses the hot topics of the day. This week: our welfare-warfare state. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

The Libertarian Angle: How to Win Freedom (video)

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 17, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger discusses the hot topics of the day. This week: moving towards a free society. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.