Daily Articles

Celebrating The Work Of Nobel Prize Winning Economist, F.A. Hayek

by Richard M. Ebeling October 8, 2014

Forty years ago, on October 9, 1974, the Nobel Prize committee announced that the co-recipient of that year’s award for economics was the Austrian economist, Friedrich A. Hayek. Never was there a more deserving recognition for one of the truly great free market thinkers of modern times. The Nobel committee recognized his contributions, including “pioneering work in the theory of ...

Is Obama Trying to Alienate Muslim-American Youth?

by Sheldon Richman October 7, 2014

A 19-year-old Chicago-area man was arrested last weekend for attempting to help the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The U.S. government says Mohammed Hamzah Khan, an American citizen, faces 15 years in prison because he was at an airport with a ticket to Turkey and had left references to ISIS and a note to his ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Boomerang of Foreign Intervention

by Future of Freedom Foundation October 6, 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. Go to the podcast.

Altered History: Exposing Deceit and Deception in the JFK Assassination Medical Evidence, Part 1 (Video)

by Douglas Horne October 3, 2014

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 In this 5-part video, Douglas P. Horne, who served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board and who is the author of the five-volume book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s ...

Dangerous Words: “I Believe in Freedom, But …”

by Richard M. Ebeling October 2, 2014

One of the greatest hurdles to a successful achievement of liberty in society is all due to the little word, “but.” People will often say, “Oh, I believe in freedom in principle, but . . .” That “but” is followed by an assumed exception requiring some form of government intervention, regulation, or redistribution. Back in the 1970s, the freedom advocate, ...

The U.S. Executions of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2014

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 In 1999, in response to an order issued by Bill Clinton to U.S. departments and agencies to release long-secret records of the U.S. national-security state relating to the 1973 military coup in Chile, the U.S. State Department released a memo ...

Smedley Butler and the Racket That Is War

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 2014

From 1898 to 1931, Smedley Darlington Butler was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. By the time he retired he had achieved what was then the Corps’s highest rank, major general, and by the time he died in 1940, at 58, he had more decorations, including two medals of honor, than any other Marine. During his years in ...

American’s Fading Love of Freedom

by James Bovard October 1, 2014

Tea Party protesters, some Republicans, and many libertarians perceive the federal government as a vast engine of oppression. But are anti-Obama activists mistaken in presuming that most Americans still care about freedom? A Gallup poll released in July asked a thousand Americans, “Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what to do with your life?” Admittedly, only ...

Bartolomé de las Casas: All Mankind Is One

by Wendy McElroy October 1, 2014

The 16th-century Spanish historian and Dominican Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566) fought against the violent colonization of and enslavement in the New World. He spoke against imperialism and for universal human rights. “All mankind is one,” he insisted; every individual possessed an identical, natural right to liberty. Las Casas was born in Seville at a fortunate time. The Italian Renaissance ...

How Laws Are Passed, Maintained, and Changed

by George Leef October 1, 2014

Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers: The Economic Engine of Political Change by Wayne A. Leighton and Edward J. Lopez (Stanford Economics and Finance 2013), 209 pages. Have you ever wondered why democracies so often generate public policies that are wasteful and unjust? Have you asked why such policies persist over long periods, even when they are known to ...

How the Pentagon Really Gets Funded

by Philip A. Reboli October 1, 2014

Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War by Robert Gates (Knop 2014), 640 pages. The most interesting parts of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s memoir, Duty, are about how he navigated the Department of Defense (DoD) bureaucracy and the special interests who live off it. A recurring theme is the difficulty Gates had in getting the DoD ...

Imaging Patterns

by David S. D'Amato October 1, 2014

The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory by Jesse Walker (Harper 2013), 448 pages. What is the substance of American paranoia? From where does it emanate, and why is its study important? These are some of the questions that, without preaching or bludgeoning us with elitist pretensions, Jesse Walker, books editor at Reason magazine, addresses in The United ...