A Key to the Present: A Message from Jacob Hornberger by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2013 Dear Friend of Freedom, Friends of FFF often point out that the ever-burgeoning group of college-aged libertarians is the key to the future. That’s true, but I think they’re more than that. I believe they are also a key to the present. Last year, The Future of Freedom Foundation, in conjunction with the Young Americans for Liberty ...
Terrorism and the Bill of Rights by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2013 In the aftermath of the Boston bombings last spring, GOP Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham and others called on Barack Obama to treat the surviving suspect in the bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as an “enemy combatant” rather than as a criminal defendant. The episode highlighted the revolutionary change in the relationship of the American people to the federal government ...
The Market Is a Beautiful Thing by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2013 Market advocates tend to respect the intellect of their fellow human beings. You can tell by their reliance on philosophical, moral, economic, and historical arguments when trying to persuade others. But what if most people’s aversion to the market isn’t founded on philosophy, morality, economics, or history? What if their objection is aesthetic? More and more I’ve come to think ...
Obama’s Latest Democracy Scam by James Bovard July 1, 2013 In his campaign earlier this year to subvert the Second Amendment, Barack Obama unveiled one of the oldest tricks in the demagogue playbook. Speaking in Colorado, he scoffed at Americans who say, “I need a gun to protect myself from the government” or “We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take our guns away.” Obama ...
The War on Americans by David S. D'Amato July 1, 2013 That the consumption of certain drugs ought to be proscribed by law is probably taken for granted by most people. The presumption in favor of banning some drugs has become so strong, so embedded in the mainstream of popular discourse as to be practically beyond debate — notwithstanding either philosophical or empirical issues that stand in contradiction to the ...
Stupidity or Plan? by Scott Horton July 1, 2013 Are America’s disasters abroad a result of stupidity or some elaborate plan? An observer of modern U.S. foreign policy can be torn on that one. It makes sense that generals, contractors, and other national-security state types will invent and follow a deliberate policy of divide and rule, as well as to create crises to move on to the next big job. ...
Book Review: Slightly Limited Government’s Nearly Last Hurrah by Joseph R. Stromberg July 1, 2013 Coolidge by Amity Shlaes (New York: Harper, 2013), 456 pages. I am for economy. After that, I am for more economy. — Calvin Coolidge (1920) Amity Shlaes’s Coolidge is a compelling biography of John Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933), 30th president of the United States. It is a well-paced narrative with elements of novelistic plotting and repeated themes both great and small. Indeed, ...
Book Review: Jingo Democrats by Matthew Harwood July 1, 2013 The Emergency State: America’s Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs by David C. Unger (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), 368 pages. During a meeting on the Bosnian crisis in the early 1990s, Madeleine Albright, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, furiously asked Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “What’s the point of having this superb ...
TGIF: Is Edward Snowden a Lawbreaker? by Sheldon Richman June 28, 2013 Most people believe that Edward Snowden, who has confirmed that the U.S. government spies on us, broke the law. Even many of his defenders concede this. While in one sense the statement “Snowden broke the law” may be trivially true, in another, deeper sense it is untrue. He may have violated the terms of legislation passed by Congress and signed ...
Judge Calls for An End to Unjust Provisions Governing Guantánamo Prisoners’ Habeas Corpus Petitions by Andy Worthington June 28, 2013 In preventing the release of prisoners from Guantánamo, all three branches of the U.S. government are responsible. Barack Obama promised to close the prison within a year of taking office, but he lacked a concrete plan and soon caved in to criticism, blocking a plan by White House counsel Greg Craig to bring some cleared prisoners who ...
Big Brother, not Snowden and Greenwald, Is the Story by Sheldon Richman June 27, 2013 “Instead of being adversaries to government power … … servants to it and mouthpieces for it.” So said the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story of Edward Snowden’s disclosure of NSA spying on the American people, after Greenwald’s confrontation with Meet the Press’s David Gregory. Greenwald needn’t have limited his observation ...
Why Is the Drinking Age 21? by Laurence M. Vance June 25, 2013 Last month, the parliament in Turkey passed legislation ostensibly designed to curb alcohol consumption among Turkish youth. Retailers may not sell alcohol between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. No alcohol may be sold within 100 meters of educational or religious centers. Educational and health institutions, sports clubs, and gas stations will be banned from selling alcohol. Although the advertising of ...