TGIF: The State Is No Friend of the Worker by Sheldon Richman October 24, 2014 The election season is upon us, and we’re hearing the usual political promises about raising wages. Democrats pledge to raise the minimum wage and assure equal pay for equal work for men and women. Republicans usually oppose those things, but their explanations are typically lame. (“The burden on small business would be increased too much.”) Some Republicans endorse raising ...
Liberty.me: The Antimilitarist Libertarian Tradition with Sheldon Richman by Sheldon Richman October 23, 2014 FFF vice-president Sheldon Richman's monthly webinar at Liberty.me. It is not possible to favor both freedom and war. War goes with tyranny, despotism, and socialism, which is why the liberal tradition has been unflinching in its support of peace. Strangely, there are periods in which this truth has been forgotten or suppressed: 19th century British ...
Obama Still Does a Good Imitation of Bush by Sheldon Richman October 22, 2014 We really should be used to this by now. After almost six years in office, President Obama is far more like George W. Bush in national-security matters than he led the American people to believe. For example, the New York Times’ Charlie Savage reports that Obama has yet to decide whether the international ban on torture applies to U.S. government ...
Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian Theory of Inflations and Recessions by Richard M. Ebeling October 21, 2014 Eighty years ago, in the autumn of 1934, there appeared in English one of the most important books on money and inflation penned in the twentieth century, The Theory of Money and Credit by the Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises. Even eight decades later, it still offers the clearest analysis and understanding of booms and busts, inflations and depressions. Mises ...
The Libertarian Angle: The Discovery of Iraq’s WMDs (video) by Future of Freedom Foundation October 20, 2014 FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the recent revelations of the U.S. government's decision to hide its discovery of chemical weapons in Iraq. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.
TGIF: Leonard P. Liggio (1933–2014) by Sheldon Richman October 17, 2014 I lost one of my favorite teachers this week, as did so many other libertarians, not to mention the freedom movement as a whole. Leonard P. Liggio, 81, died after a period of declining health. Leonard was a major influence on my worldview during the nearly 40 years I knew him. While I had not seen him much in ...
The Politicians Are Scaring You Again by Sheldon Richman October 16, 2014 They are doing it again. “They” are the war-party politicians, Democrats and Republicans. “It” is scaring you into supporting another war in the Middle East. When will the American people learn? If in a republic the people are the ultimate check on government power, a gullible, easily frightened public is a disaster waiting to happen. Where is the derisive skepticism ...
The Hegemony Builders by Scott McPherson October 15, 2014 Who are these, obsequious fools Lickspittles drawing e'er near To the flames of power, but fulfilled By a moment in diadem's glare? “To arms!” they cry – to all but they For what good is slavish applause If spent upon a battlefield – What then for Caesar's next cause? Oh mighty lambs, lust for war! Heedless of misery and pain Lust for him who makes it so Suckle the breast ...
Winning Freedom Requires Radical Solutions by Richard M. Ebeling October 14, 2014 Suppose that there was a button in front of you that if you pushed it would, in one instant, abolish all the governmental controls and regulations on the U.S. economy. Would you push that button, and transform America into a society of free men associating with each other on the basis of voluntary exchange, with government limited to protection ...
The Libertarian Angle: Free Trade by Future of Freedom Foundation October 13, 2014 FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the unintended consequences of an interventionist foreign policy. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly and is part of the Voices of Liberty community . Go to the podcast.
TGIF: A Foreign Policy By and For Knaves by Sheldon Richman October 10, 2014 David Hume (1711-1776) was no hardcore libertarian, but he was a provocative thinker and a key figure in the development of liberalism. Hume helped make the Scottish Enlightenment the important period it was. He also can be fun to read. Observe this from his essay “Of the Independency of Parliament”: Political writers have established it as a maxim, ...
Time to Cut the Card by Laurence M. Vance October 9, 2014 Conservatives have been outraged since the first of the year, not only because Colorado legalized the recreational use of marijuana, but also because some welfare recipients have, so they maintain, used their benefits to purchase it. In the year 2000, Colorado became one of the now-22 states to legalize the medical use of marijuana. But in 2012, voters in Colorado, ...