Daily Articles

The Libertarian Angle: American Sniper Revisited

by Future of Freedom Foundation February 2, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the debate continues over the smash hit movie American Sniper. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

The U.S. Executions of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, Part 5

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2015

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 In 1979 Joyce Horman filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against federal officials for the wrongful death of her husband, Charles. The case undoubtedly caused no small amount of consternation for the U.S. national-security state because a lawsuit ordinarily ...

Unjust Immigration Law Is Not Law

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2015

As 2014 and the Democrats’ control of the Senate neared their conclusion, Barack Obama issued an executive order to defer deportation of five million people who lack government papers — mostly parents of children whom the government deems citizens or legal permanent residents. Under the order, most of those folks have received permission to work. Obama increased the number ...

Obamacare Racketeering and Intellectual Knavery

by James Bovard February 1, 2015

Paternalism is a desperate gamble that lying politicians will honestly care for those who fall under their power. This axiom has been made stark with the controversy arising from a video of Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of Obamacare, in which he admits that the administration conned the American public and blames dumb voters for the flimflam. Gruber, an ...

Power and Knowledge: Socialist and Militarist Calculation Problems

by Joseph R. Stromberg February 1, 2015

Economist Ludwig von Mises argued (1920) that real prices arise only from exchanges of privately owned goods; having abolished such prices, socialist systems could never calculate rationally. Economist F.A. Hayek agreed with Mises that central planning would produce poverty and totalitarianism, but made the use of knowledge in society the central weakness of socialist calculation. In his view (1945), ...

The Real Story Remains Untold

by Kevin Carson February 1, 2015

Liberty’s Dawn: A People’s History of the Industrial Revolution by Emma Griffin (Yale University Press 2013), 320 pages). Emma Griffin calls this a “People’s History of the Industrial Revolution,” and uses documentation of much the same kind as E.P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class — a work she explicitly frames her work as a ...

Children Learn More from Starfish than from Spiders

by Pauline Dixon February 1, 2015

The Rebirth of Education: Schooling Ain’t Learning by Lant Pritchett (Center for Global Development 2013), 288 pages. This book, which indicts centralized state schooling in the developing world, engages you from beginning to end. Examples from Pritchett’s own experiences in India and his use of Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom’s spiders and starfish tropes to differentiate centralized from ...

Libertarians and Political Violence

by Jared Labell February 1, 2015

To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant’s Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement by Robert H. Churchill (University of Michigan Press 2011), 384 pages. Discussions regarding the legitimate use of force are not limited to any single ideology. Perhaps the defining quality of any political movement vying for validity is its position on ...

TGIF: The Consequences of Liberty

by Sheldon Richman January 30, 2015

Consistent free-market advocates — and not just professional economists — are not only enthusiastic about their preferred system of political economy; they are very enthusiastic. At least part of that enthusiasm is fueled by a well-grounded conviction that the general level of prosperity would be unprecedentedly high if people were free to engage in peaceful production and exchange without ...

The American Sniper Was No Hero

by Sheldon Richman January 28, 2015

Portuguese Despite what some people think, hero is not a synonym for competent government-hired killer. If Clint Eastwood’s record-breaking movie, American Sniper, launches a frank public conversation about war and heroism, the great director will have performed a badly needed service for the country and the world. This is neither ...

Europe’s Move in the Direction of More Monetary Mischief

by Richard M. Ebeling January 27, 2015

The European Central Bank has announced its intention to create out of thin air over one trillion new Euros from March 2015 to September 2016. The rationale, the monetary central planners say, is to prevent price deflation and “stimulate” the European economy into prosperity. The only problem with their plan is that their concern about “deflation” is a misguided fear, ...

The Libertarian Angle: American Sniper

by Future of Freedom Foundation January 26, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the hit movie American Sniper. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.