Daily Articles

Should the Export-Import Bank Be Reauthorized?

by Laurence M. Vance August 7, 2014

The Export-Import Bank is up for reauthorization again. Democrats and Republicans in Congress are divided against each other and among themselves as to reforms that should be imposed on the bank, and, to a lesser extent, whether the bank should be reauthorized at all. But before looking at the question of whether the Export-Import Bank should be reauthorized, we should ...

The U.S. Government Still Tries to Subvert Cuba

by Sheldon Richman August 6, 2014

When I saw the headline about the U.S. government and Cuba in my newspaper the other day, I thought I’d awoken in 1961. It was a Twilight Zone moment for sure: “U.S. program aimed to stir dissent in Cuba.” I expected Rod Serling to welcome me to “another dimension.” But it was 2014. The AP news report said ...

The Libertarian Angle: Regime Change in Cuba

by Future of Freedom Foundation August 5, 2014

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the decades long sparring contest with Cuba. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

Mr. President: Please Mind Your Own Business

by Richard M. Ebeling August 4, 2014

Dear President Obama, For nearly six years, now, you have declared your intention and desire of being my Nanny-in-Chief. Your original campaign slogan of “Hope and Change” was really a promise of “Control and Command.” Well, Mr. President, I have a request: Mind your own business. Let me start out with some simple questions. How do you know what is right ...

TGIF: I Can’t Help That I’m a Libertarian

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2014

It’s not easy being a libertarian. I am not looking for sympathy when I say that. I just mean to point out that rejecting the conventional wisdom on virtually (do I really need this adverb?) every political question, current and historical, can be wearying. Life could be so much simpler if it were otherwise. No doubt about that. I ...

The Presidential Authority to Torture and Assassinate, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2014

Part 1 | Part 2 If our American ancestors in 1787 had been told that the Constitution was going to bring into existence a national government that would have the powers to torture and assassinate people, including American citizens, there is no reasonable possibility that Americans would have approved the document. They would undoubtedly have instead chosen ...

On Work

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2014

I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar,” 1837 Work! (Exclaimed in ...

America’s Cluster- Bomb Congress

by James Bovard August 1, 2014

Tens of thousands of Americans have been bushwhacked by a single arcane sentence in a 673-page law Congress enacted six years ago. The IRS is seizing both federal and state tax refunds for individuals whom the Social Security Administration accuses of having received excessive benefits years ago. But the government often has zero evidence of the overpayments, and the ...

Due Process versus Secret Courts

by Wendy McElroy August 1, 2014

Due process is a set of legal requirements that protect the individual against abuse by the state. Examples are a person’s right to be notified of court proceedings in which he is involved and the right against self-incrimination. Due process is woven into the fabric of American society through both the Constitution and legal precedent. Few practices are as damaging ...

The Poverty of Top- Down Anti-Poverty Efforts

by David S. D'Amato August 1, 2014

The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty by Nina Munk (Doubleday 2012), 272 pages. In the idealist, the system-building visionary, there is a certain natural attractiveness, a gravitational pull centered on the strength of his convictions. We desire to be a part of his crusade, or at least to root it on, because we admire the ...

A Conservative Dissents from the Corporate Status Quo

by Anthony Gregory August 1, 2014

The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America by David A. Stockman, (Public Affairs 2013), 768 pages. Most leftist critiques of libertarianism focus on an alleged blind defense of corporate power. Indeed, left-libertarian Kevin Carson has helpfully criticized the very real problem of “vulgar libertarianism,” the working assumption that current economic realities are a product of free-market dynamics ...

Borderlands: What’s Happening to America?

by Sheldon Richman July 30, 2014

A man, an American citizen, sits in his car as a U.S. Border Patrol agent insists that he roll down his window. He refuses. Agents use battering rams to smash the windows. Still, the driver refuses to leave his car, so he is hit with a Taser from two sides. He screams. It would be bad enough if this scene, ...