FFF Webinar: Bastiat’s Economic Harmonies (Audio) by Sheldon Richman June 25, 2013 On May 15, 2013, FFF vice president and editor Sheldon Richman hosted a free, interactive online webinar entitled “Bastiat's Economic Harmonies,” which focused on Federic Bastiat's classic Economic Harmonies. The webinar was an interactive experience with Sheldon and the participants. Download the audio. Subscribe to FFF Podcasts.
The Libertarian Angle: National Service by Future of Freedom Foundation June 24, 2013 Jacob Hornberger and Sheldon Richman discuss recent talk about instituting a national service program. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly.
TGIF: National Servitude by Sheldon Richman June 21, 2013 To make citizens, we must facilitate the shared experiences that cultivate civic pride and responsibility. This should mean a period of full-time national service as a rite of passage for every young American, ages 18 to 28. Such service could be military or civilian. Young adults could choose the Army or Peace Corps, Marine Corps or AmeriCorps, the Navy or ...
FFF Webinar: The Income Tax (audio) by Sheldon Richman June 21, 2013 On June 19, 2013, FFF vice president and editor Sheldon Richman hosted a free, interactive online webinar entitled “The Income Tax." The webinar was an interactive experience with Sheldon and particiapants. Download the audio. Subscribe to FFF Podcasts.
The Calling: Markets Turn Waste into Want-Satisfaction by Steven Horwitz June 20, 2013 A frequent criticism of markets is that private owners have every incentive to dump the waste byproducts of their production processes into the air, water, or land without concern about the harmful effects. More sophisticated critics understand the idea of negative externalities and love to jump up and down about how they demonstrate the need for government intervention. There ...
Motives Aside, the NSA Should Not Spy on Us by Sheldon Richman June 18, 2013 You need not suspect the motives of those responsible for NSA surveillance to detest what they are doing. In fact, we may have more to fear from spies acting out of patriotic zeal than those acting out of power lust or economic interest: Zealots are more likely to eschew restraints that might compromise their righteous cause. For the sake of ...
The Libertarian Angle: NSA and Syria (video) by Future of Freedom Foundation June 17, 2013 Jacob Hornberger and Sheldon Richman discuss the recent revelations about the NSA surveillance program and Obama's decision to arm the Syrian rebels. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Download audio here. Subscribe to the RSS feed.
U.S. Military Admits Only 2.5 Percent of All Prisoners Ever Held at Guantánamo Will Be Tried by Andy Worthington June 17, 2013 It’s official: Eleven and a half years after the “war on terror” prison opened at Guantánamo, the maximum number of prisoners that the U.S. military intends to prosecute, or has already prosecuted, is 20 — or just 2.5 percent of the 779 men held at the prison since it opened in January 2002. The news was announced on Monday, June ...
TGIF: It’s Not Edward Snowden Who Betrayed Us by Sheldon Richman June 14, 2013 When you cut through the fog, the NSA controversy is about whether we should trust people with institutional power. Edward Snowden’s courageous exposure of massive secret surveillance separates those who say yes from those who say, “Hell no!” The trusting attitude can be found among progressives and conservatives alike (with notable exceptions), and even some who have identified themselves ...
Where Is the Conservative Outrage over the IRS? by Laurence M. Vance June 13, 2013 The ongoing scandal concerning the IRS’s targeting conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status shows just how close conservatives are to liberals and how far they are from libertarians. It has come to light that the IRS singled out conservative organizations that included the words “Tea Party” or “patriot” in their applications for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status. Lois Lerner, ...
The Fixed Economy and Central Banking by Tim Kelly June 12, 2013 Last month Rolling Stone carried an article by investigative journalist Matt Taibbi with the provocative title “Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever.” Taibbi begins the piece by writing, Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. ...
Obama Speaks with Forked Tongue on Surveillance by Sheldon Richman June 11, 2013 It’s bad enough the federal government spies on us. Must it insult our intelligence too? The government’s response to Edward Snowden’s leaks about the National Security Agency’s secret monitoring of the Internet and collection of our telephone logs is a mass of contradictions. Officials have said the disclosures are (1) old news, (2) grossly inaccurate, and (3) a blow to ...