Daily Articles

The Libertarian Angle: March 25, 2013

by Future of Freedom Foundation March 26, 2013

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

Market Manipulations

by Tim Kelly March 25, 2013

With all the government meddling in the economy, it is virtually impossible to sort out free-market functions from political manipulations. It is also impossible to predict the economy’s future performance with any degree of accuracy. There are simply too many variables, and with most economic data being manipulated to serve political agendas, the chances of getting an accurate picture ...

TGIF: Bastiat on the Socialization of Wealth

by Sheldon Richman March 22, 2013

That … veil which is spread before the eyes of the ordinary man, which even the attentive observer does not always succeed in casting aside, prevents us from seeing the most marvelous of all social phenomena: real wealth constantly passing from the domain of private property into the communal domain. Wealth marvelously passing from the private to the communal domain? ...

Obama’s “No Fly” List for FedEx and UPS

by Wendy McElroy March 22, 2013

The Obama administration is notorious for crony capitalism, through which big businesses reap huge riches by virtue of their cozy association with government. Big oil, big car companies, big agrobusinesses, big banks, and big drug corporations are among the legally privileged cronies who are profiting at the expense of nonprivileged competitors and of customers who pay higher prices. Now the ...

“No Indefinite Detention at Guantánamo,” U.S. Claims, Defying Reality

by Andy Worthington March 22, 2013

We live in surreal times. Barack Obama, who promised “hope and change,” has, instead, proven to be a worthy successor to George W. Bush as a warmonger and a defender of those in positions of power and authority who authorized the use of torture. Moreover, when it comes to another hallmark of Bush-era crimes — indefinite detention without charge or ...

The Disasters that U.S. Intervention Created

by Sheldon Richman March 21, 2013

Americans have forgotten about the Iraq war, which began 10 years ago this week, and the Afghan war, the longest in American history, but the U.S. government is still throwing its weight around in both countries. The Iraq war, the pretext for which was nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, officially ended in 2011 with the withdrawal of virtually all of ...

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 ...