Daily Articles

The Libertarian Angle: Surveillance-State Tyranny

by Future of Freedom Foundation June 10, 2013

In this week's edition of The Libertarian Angle, Jacob Hornberger and Sheldon Richman discuss the recent disclosures about the National Security Agency's surveillance program. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Download the audio here.

TGIF: The Lie Factory

by Sheldon Richman June 7, 2013

In his latest major address on foreign policy, President Obama said this: So after I took office … we pursued a new strategy in Afghanistan, and increased our training of Afghan forces.… In Afghanistan, we will complete our transition to Afghan responsibility for that country’s security. Our troops will come home. Our combat mission will come to an end. ...

Solitary Confinement: Cruel, but Not Unusual?

by Wendy McElroy June 6, 2013

An estimated 103 prisoners have been on a hunger strike for well over three months at the American prison called Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba). The protesters seem willing to die rather than live in the savage conditions that some of them have endured for a decade without so much as being charged with a crime. Human rights

Marx, the Once “Anti-Communist,” Who Brought Socialist Ruin to the World

by Richard M. Ebeling June 5, 2013

Some people may have missed it on their calendar, but May 5th was Karl Marx's birthday. It is worth recalling, also, that there was a time when Marx was an anti-communist. Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in the German Rhineland town of Trier, and died on March 14, 1883 in London. It is said that by its fruit ...

The U.S. Base on Diego Garcia: An Overlooked Atrocity

by Sheldon Richman June 4, 2013

The largest criminal organizations in the world are governments. The bigger they are, the more capable of perpetrating atrocities. Not only do they obtain great wealth through compulsion (taxation), they also have an ideological mystique that permits them uniquely to get away with murder, torture, and theft. The U.S. government is no exception. This is demonstrated by, among many other ...

Will Boston Bombings Be a Boon to Beretta Banners?

by Michael Tennant June 4, 2013

As with other recent crises, the Boston Marathon bombings have prompted calls for radical reductions in Americans’ liberties. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York — he of the super-sized soda ban — told reporters that in the interest of public safety “our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution ... have to change” to allow for greater ...

The Libertarian Angle: June 3, 2013

by Future of Freedom Foundation June 3, 2013

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the drug war.

Cancerville, D.C.

by Joel Valenzuela June 3, 2013

Washington, D.C., is booming. And that’s a problem. America is still sick. Its economy, and indeed that of the world, struggle on in a sorry state of disrepair. The much-awaited recovery is finally here, and it’s nothing to get excited about. Frustrated millennials have even taken to cracking jokes about how easy it was for their parents’ generation ...

The Texas Public-School Controversy on 9/11

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2013

A public-school controversy over 9/11 that erupted last spring in Texas demonstrates perfectly the statist mindset in America and how that mindset blocks the libertarian effort to create a proper foreign policy. The controversy also exemplifies the wide gulf between statists and libertarians with respect to moral principles, critical thinking, the exercise of conscience, and the role of government ...

Loving Economics

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2013

“My love affair with economics began in the fall of 1979.” With those words, Peter Boettke begins his valentine to the economics discipline, that is, his latest book: Living Economics: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Independent Institute and Universidad Francisco Marroquin, 2012). Boettke, besides being a University Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University, the BB&T Professor for the ...

Destroying Freedom in the Name of Equal Opportunity

by James Bovard June 1, 2013

The Obama administration is finding new ways to use civil-rights laws to attack freedom and common sense. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) last year issued a byzantine “enforcement guidance” to browbeat businesses into ceasing to conduct criminal-background checks on job applicants. The agency’s edict will chill hiring and spur a backlash across the nation. The 1964 Civil Rights Act ...

Will the Rich Stick Around to Be Soaked?

by Wendy McElroy June 1, 2013

On December 8, the website Breitbart heralded, “Despite Tax Increase, California State Revenues in Freefall.” In the November state elections, a successful Proposition 30 imposed a 13.3 percent tax rate on income over $1,000,000 — an increase of 29.13 percent and the highest state tax rate in the nation. The predicted tax revenue was hailed as a way to ...