TGIF: Mind Your Metaphors by Sheldon Richman February 15, 2013 Metaphor consists in giving a thing a name that belongs to something else. — Aristotle, Poetics Language is metaphorical through and through. — Thomas Szasz, Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences In a lecture delivered at the London School of Economics in March 1933, F.A. Hayek, a 33-year-old economist recently appointed to the faculty, lamented that the “oldest and most general ...
Is Today’s Argentina Tomorrow’s America? by Michael Tennant February 15, 2013 Americans wondering what to expect as their government piles on more debt and refuses to cut spending do not need to look any further than Argentina. A nation once among the most prosperous in the world is now deeply in debt, hemorrhaging cash, and trying to inflate its way out of the mess it has created. This inflation, naturally, ...
The Calling: The Everyday Marvels of the Market by Steven Horwitz February 14, 2013 Those of us who live in largely market-based economies can too easily take for granted what we might call the everyday marvels of the market. We find ourselves with things that would have amazed and mystified people just a couple of generations ago. If we think of the marvels the market delivers, we normally think of technology, but fancy ...
Religious Discrimination by Laurence M. Vance February 13, 2013 Do churches and other religious organizations have the right to discriminate? Even advocates of discrimination laws in general are usually willing to make an exception for churches and religious organizations to practice discrimination in employment based on religious creed, sex, marital status, or sexual orientation. Thus, a church of a particular denomination is free to limit offers of employment to ...
Drone Trust the Government by Sheldon Richman February 12, 2013 “Covert” drone warfare requires a level of confidence in politicians that they will never deserve. In the Kentucky Resolutions, the 1798 protest against the Alien and Sedition Acts, Thomas Jefferson wrote, It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of ...
America: Extorting Data Access by Wendy McElroy February 12, 2013 U.S. law enforcement wants companies to covertly install so-called computer back doors in the software they produce. This would allow the government to access information on any computer using the software without being detected and without going through an authentication process that protects privacy. As well, the untraceable e-wiretaps would effectively bypass the sticky question of obtaining ...
The Jacob Hornberger Show: February 10, 2013 (video) by Jacob G. Hornberger February 11, 2013 The Jacob Hornberger Show airs live every Sunday evening at 6:30 p.m. eastern on the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Ustream channel.
TGIF: Does the Market Exhibit Cooperation? by Sheldon Richman February 8, 2013 The American Heritage Dictionary defines the verb cooperate as “To work or act together toward a common end or purpose” and “To form an association for common, usually economic, benefit.” Note that these definitions seem to require awareness about some joint effort to achieve a common objective. This would seem to leave little room for the social cooperation that libertarians ...
Who is Mentally Ill? by Wendy McElroy February 8, 2013 The current push toward gun control is being presented in a particularly dangerous and dishonest manner. It is being framed in terms of mental health and packaged in a way that almost guarantees victory for the advocates of control. The debating point proffered is, “How do we keep guns away from the mentally ill?” Thus far, President Obama’s answer has ...
Religious Obstacles to Democratization in the Middle East: Past and Present by Timur Kuran February 8, 2013 On February 5th, 2013, Timur Kuran gave the following speech at The Future of Freedom Foundation’s “Economic Liberty Lecture Series.” The speech can viewed above in its entirety.
The Calling: “Who Gets What” Is Only Half the Problem by Steven Horwitz February 7, 2013 When we economists talk about the role of prices in a market economy, one of the points we often make is that prices determine who, among the many who would like to have a particular good, are actually able to obtain it. In other words, we must decide “who gets what.” In a world of scarcity, the wants of human ...
On Terrorism, America Has Lost Its Way by Andy Worthington February 7, 2013 Last week at Guantánamo a farcical dance played out, as it does every six months or so. Representatives of the U.S. mainstream media — and other reporters from around the world — flew to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to witness the latest round of the seemingly interminable pre-trial hearings in the cases of Khalid Sheikh ...