Daily Articles

Foreign Aid Clobbers the Third World

by James Bovard April 1, 2014

The U.S. government loves to preen about its generosity to the world’s downtrodden. However, a long series of presidents and their tools have scorned the evidence that their aid programs perennially clobber recipients. Nowhere is this clearer than in the sordid history of U.S. food aid. Food for Peace was devised in 1954 to help dump abroad embarrassingly huge crop ...

Tolerance: Joining the Best of Conservatism and Progressivism

by Alexander William Salter April 1, 2014

Many liberals (in the classical sense) are so reluctant to concede an inch to conservatism and progressivism that they insist the latter two political philosophies, and the worldviews that frequently accompany them, have no redeeming features. This is a mistake. There are elements of conservatism worth conserving, and elements of progressivism worth progressing towards. Furthermore, tolerance, the premier social ...

“Racist” Zip Codes

by Wendy McElroy April 1, 2014

A new type of social engineering is poised to descend on American communities: diversity mapping and the rectification of any racial inequities the mapping reveals. The campaign is meant to stamp out “geospatial discrimination.” The term refers to the fact that affluent neighborhoods tend to be dominated by whites and Asians. What government calls “protected minorities,” especially blacks, are relatively ...

The Death of Empires

by Martin Morse Wooster April 1, 2014

Balance: The Economics of Great Powers from Ancient Rome to Modern America by Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane. (Simon and Schuster 2013), 296 pages. One of the perennial questions historians address is why empires fell. In his 1987 bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Yale historian Paul Kennedy theorized that every empire reaches a tipping point ...

For Your Own Good

by John Ahrens April 1, 2014

Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism by Sarah Conly (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 256 pages (ebook edition reviewed). Bowdoin philosophy professor Sarah Conly has given us a remarkably timely book. Against Autonomy makes an important contribution to the trending discussion of what some call the “nanny state” and others might call simply “petty fascism” (or maybe just “fascism”). It is ...

The Libertarian Angle: Income Taxation

by Future of Freedom Foundation March 31, 2014

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the history of the income tax and its impact on the liberty of the U.S. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

Freedom vs. the State: The Libertarian Angle Live

by Future of Freedom Foundation March 31, 2014

After the successful tour of the Libertarian Angle in the southeast this past fall, FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman are taking the show on the road again! Using the same interactive format as the Libertarian Angle, Jacob and Sheldon will integrate college audiences into the discussion. In conjunction with our friends at the

TGIF: Obama’s Iraqi Fairy Tale

by Sheldon Richman March 28, 2014

I promised myself that I would no longer comment on what Barack Obama has to say, because it’s just not worth the time and effort. Obama’s public remarks are comprehensible only if you keep one thing in mind: he, like other politicians, thinks most people are morons. I am so appalled by what Obama said in Europe the other ...

The Calling: Some Thoughts on Inequality

by Steven Horwitz March 27, 2014

Perhaps no other issue is so much in the forefront of political debate these days as inequality. Many commentators argue that one of the most damaging things happening in the United States is increasing inequality. Often this argument is tied to criticisms of markets, as if somehow free markets, or capitalism, are the cause of this supposed increase. It’s that ...

Sheldon Richman on Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock

by Sheldon Richman March 27, 2014

2014-03-21 Hour 2 Sheldon Richman from Ernest Hancock on Vimeo.

The Iranian Threat That Never Was

by Sheldon Richman March 26, 2014

If you take politicians and the mainstream media seriously, you believe that Iran wants a nuclear weapon and has relentlessly engaged in covert efforts to build one. Even if you are aware that Iran signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, you may believe that those who run the Islamic ...

Why Should Republicans Object to Obama’s New Budget?

by Laurence M. Vance March 26, 2014

Barack Obama earlier this month unveiled his $3.9 trillion budget plan for fiscal year 2015. “It is a road map for creating jobs with good wages and expanding opportunity for Americans,” said the president. Although the Constitution doesn’t mention a federal budget, and it is ultimately up to Congress — not the president — to decide how much ...