I Am Sick of Veterans Who Wave the Flag and Send Others Off To Die by James Glaser March 21, 2013 A World War II vet told me something once that I have found to be true: “If you walk into a VFW or American Legion Post bar and hear some guy telling everyone what a hero he was and how he fought the enemy so well, but at the end of the bar there sits a man alone not talking ...
North Korea’s Prison Camps — and America’s by Michael Tennant March 20, 2013 After returning from a recent trip to North Korea, former NBA star Dennis Rodman sat for an interview on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopolous. After Rodman declared that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, whom he had met on his trip, was “a great guy,” Stephanopolous, apparently taken aback by the remark, said incredulously, “A great guy who puts ...
The Libertarian Angle: March 18, 2013 (video) by Future of Freedom Foundation March 19, 2013 The Libertarian Angle features FFF vice president Sheldon Richman and president Jacob Hornberger. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly.
Liberals, Conservatives, and the Welfare State by Laurence M. Vance March 19, 2013 Ronald Sider is a liberal. Paul Ryan is a conservative. But don’t let the labels fool you; they are more alike than you think. Sider is the founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, a think tank that promotes “peace with justice for the oppressed and marginalized throughout the world” by combining “biblical scholarship with astute policy analysis to ...
The Motives of Public Officials by Scott McPherson March 18, 2013 It is not uncommon for critics of the free market to allege that for-profit providers of services have an interest, not in solving problems, but rather in prolonging them. Why would the medical industry cure cancer, heart disease, or AIDS, for example, when it would just be putting itself out of business? This argument essentially hinges on the notion that ...
TGIF: Freedom Overlooked by Sheldon Richman March 15, 2013 The idea of freedom counts for little in public discourse. It may come up now and then, only to be quickly shoved to the rear as something quaintly outmoded if not suggestive of paranoia. Examples abound, and this week saw its share. The first that comes to mind is New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s legal setback in his attempt to ...
The Calling: The Challenge of Undesigned and Anonymous Order by Steven Horwitz March 14, 2013 The spontaneous order of the market has long been an object of both theoretical and aesthetic contemplation for libertarians. From Adam Smith’s discussion of the number of hands it took to make a wool coat, to Leonard Read’s justly famous “I, Pencil,” to the examples that fill Russ Roberts’s parable novel The Price of Everything, libertarians have ...
Economic Liberty Lecture Series: Steven Landsburg by Steven E. Landsburg March 14, 2013 On March 4, 2013, Steven Landsburg gave the following speech at The Future of Freedom Foundation’s “Economic Liberty Lecture Series.” The speech can viewed above in its entirety.
The Dow Jones Is Lying by Sheldon Richman March 13, 2013 The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is at a record high, and the unemployment rate has ticked down to 7.7 percent, but this is no time to celebrate. The economy is still in the doldrums. A little perspective: The news media trumpet changes in the Dow as though it tells us almost all we need to know about the economic ...
Is the Supreme Court’s Ruling on Surveillance Really That Significant? by Tim Kelly March 13, 2013 In a remarkable achievement of legal sophistry, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against a constitutional challenge to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act. The 5–4 ruling this February upheld the federal law that authorizes the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on international telephone calls and emails in the so-called war on terror. The high court’s conservative bloc united to ...
The Libertarian Angle: March 12, 2013 (video) by Future of Freedom Foundation March 13, 2013 The Libertarian Angle features FFF vice president Sheldon Richman and president Jacob Hornberger. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly.
The Nobel Peace Laureate with a Kill List by Wendy McElroy March 12, 2013 On February 5, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney offered a rare defense of America’s drone policy. He stated, “These strikes are legal, they are ethical, and they are wise.” The rarity of his statement arises from the fact that the White House has stonewalled reporters on the drone program since its inception. The proximate cause of Carney’s ...