Daily Articles

Close Guantánamo, Free the Afghans

by Andy Worthington May 29, 2013

In the coverage of the ongoing, prisonwide hunger strike at Guantánamo, which is now in its fourth month, there has been widespread recognition that it is unacceptable to indefinitely detain the 86 prisoners (out of 166 in total) who were cleared for release more than three years ago by the president’s own interagency task force. These men ...

The Libertarian Angle: May 28, 2013

by Future of Freedom Foundation May 28, 2013

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the Memorial Day, foreign policy, and the war on terrorism.

TGIF: The Greatness of Peace Activist John Bright

by Sheldon Richman May 24, 2013

As we approach Memorial Day — or what I like to call Revisionist History Day — it’s fitting to contemplate the words of one of the world’s great peace activists, John Bright (1811–1889). Bright, a Quaker and Nonconformist, is best known for leading (with Richard Cobden) Britain’s Anti-Corn Law League, the organization that fought successfully to abolish ...

Bangladeshi Workers Need Freed Markets

by Sheldon Richman May 22, 2013

Since November, more than a thousand Bangladeshi garment workers have perished in two tragic factory calamities: a fire in Tazreen and a building collapse in Savar, outside the capital, Dhaka. Bangladesh is a major exporter of apparel to the West and “is set to become the world’s largest apparel exporter over the next few years,” the Economist reports. ...

The Libertarian Angle: May 20, 2013

by Future of Freedom Foundation May 20, 2013

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the IRS scandal and the income tax.

TGIF: Government Is the Problem

by Sheldon Richman May 17, 2013

Barack Obama recently told the graduating class of the Ohio State University, Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems.… They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that ...

Abolish the IRS — and the Income Tax with It

by Sheldon Richman May 16, 2013

The Internal Revenue Service has been caught engaging in political profiling while processing applications for tax-exempt status. In this case it was against organizations with “tea-party” or “patriot ” in their names and other right-wing groups. Next time it could be libertarian or left-wing antiwar and pro-civil-liberties groups. No dissenter can ever rest assured he is safe from the 

Crises and Opportunities

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 16, 2013

The following 7-minute speech was delivered to 240 people at a meeting of the Charleston Meeting, a prestigious monthly discussion club in Charleston, South Carolina. Other speakers were U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C), Congressman Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), Congressman-elect Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), Jim Capretta (American Enterprise Institute), Alex Nowrasteh (Cato Institute), Ken Abramowitz (New York financial planner), and Mark Mix ...

Obama’s Bid for Unilateral Power over Elections

by Wendy McElroy May 14, 2013

“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.” — Joseph Stalin (1923), as quoted in The Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary by Boris Bazhanov. To glimpse the political future of America, turn off the news, ignore public statements from officials, and ...

The Libertarian Angle: May 13, 2013

by Future of Freedom Foundation May 13, 2013

The Libertarian Angle features FFF vice president Sheldon Richman and president Jacob Hornberger. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly.

TGIF: No Intervention in Syria

by Sheldon Richman May 10, 2013

If after the debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya (dare I say Vietnam?) some people still want the U.S. government to intervene — further — in the war inside Syria (but fueled by outsiders), we must conclude, not that they can’t learn the lessons of recent history, but that they won’t because doing so would be contrary ...

The Calling: The Problem with Political Heroes and Villains

by Steven Horwitz May 9, 2013

It’s sometimes hard to tell the coverage of politics from the coverage of sports. People seem to root for political parties as though they were sports teams, cheering Team Red or Team Blue on to victory with the same passion they bring to the Super Bowl. Individual team members are followed with the same intensity as are star players ...