Daily Articles

Leave Should Be Left to the Market

by Laurence M. Vance July 15, 2014

Democrats, liberals, progressives, and the White House Summit on Working Families don’t think the Family and Medical Leave Act goes far enough. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was passed in 1993 by the 103rd Congress — the only Congress with a Democratic majority that Bill Clinton had. The legislation (H.R.1) ...

Free Market Capitalism vs. Crony Capitalism

by Richard M. Ebeling July 14, 2014

In the minds of many people around the world, including in the United States, the term “capitalism” carries the idea of unfairness, exploitation, undeserved privilege and power, and immoral profit making. What is often difficult to get people to understand is that this misplaced conception of “capitalism” has nothing to do with real free markets and economic liberty, and ...

TGIF: Speaking to Nonlibertarians

by Sheldon Richman July 11, 2014

If libertarians want to change how nonlibertarians’ think about government, they will need to understand how nonlibertarians think about government. By “nonlibertarians,” I mean the majority of people who spend little if any time pondering political theory, or what Murray Rothbard called political ethics. They may focus at times on particular government programs and actions, or on proposals for ...

Libertarian Themes in the Seven Deadly Sins of Dante’s Divine Comedy

by Lawrence M. Ludlow July 11, 2014

In May 2013, I wrote an essay entitled Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Divine Origins of the Free Market. In the blog comments that followed, I suggested that Dante’s ranking of the seven deadly sins—in particular, the sequence by which he distinguished less serious from more serious sins—reflected insights that we share as libertarians, regardless of our ...

Let the Immigrants Stay

by Sheldon Richman July 9, 2014

Virtually all commentary about the influx of unaccompanied Central American children into the United States, which some say could rise to 90,000 this year, misses the point: no government has the moral authority to capture these kids and send them back to the miserable situations they have escaped. This claim will strike many people as outrageous. So I ask, ...

Rights: Their Source and Nature

by Jim Boehm July 8, 2014

I find it amazing that so many Americans, including those on the Supreme Court, can be lost in the fog of the unknown when it comes to the source and nature of rights. We often hear that our rights come from the Constitution, but the Constitution is only a confirmation of our pre-existing rights. One gentleman wrote in the readers’ ...

The Libertarian Angle: Obamacare, Contraceptives, and Immigrant Children

by Future of Freedom Foundation July 7, 2014

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the Hobby Lobby ruling and the influx of immigrant children on the southern border. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

Misguided Beliefs in Political Leaders

by Richard M. Ebeling July 7, 2014

This is an election year and as in all past election years we are inundated with promises and proposals from candidates, each hoping to attract our votes. For the most part what they are promising is “leadership” and political solutions to our personal, social and economic problems. They almost always fail to remind us, however, that in the political ...

A Message from Jacob G. Hornberger

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 3, 2014

Dear Friend of Freedom, If you’re a radical for liberty like me then you’ll want to read this letter and help. We here at The Future of Freedom Foundation don’t compromise — and sometimes we have to pay a price for our uncompromising moral defense of freedom. Sometimes we walk away from donations because the money or the idea would sacrifice ...

The Transportation “Fiscal Cliff”

by Laurence M. Vance July 3, 2014

Every few months in Washington, D.C., there is some perceived crisis that headlines newspapers for a few weeks before fading away or being overcome by the next crisis. They are generally crises of the government’s own making and are due to its reckless spending and continued operation of unconstitutional agencies and programs. This time it is the transportation “fiscal cliff.” The ...

Hobby Lobby Ruling Falls Short

by Sheldon Richman July 2, 2014

As far as it went, the Supreme Court generally got it right in the Hobby Lobby-Obamacare-contraception case. Unfortunately it didn’t go nearly far enough. The court ruled that “closely held corporations” whose owners have religious convictions against contraceptives cannot be forced to pay for employee coverage for those products. I wish the court could have said this instead: (1) No one ...

The U.S. Embrace of Monetary Tyranny, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2014

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In 1933, in one of the most shocking events in the history of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt issued a series of executive orders, backed by Congress, that required the American people, on pain of fine and imprisonment, to surrender their gold coins to the federal government, for ...