Daily Articles

Amtrak Joins the Police State

by Wendy McElroy October 11, 2012

According to Homeland Security Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has forged “a new partnership” with “the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Amtrak to battle the trafficking of humans.” DHS will train “over 8,000 frontline transportation employees and Amtrak Police Department officers” on how to recognize and report trafficking indicators and suspected traffickers. Those frontline employees include ...

The Glaring Contradiction in Anti-Iran Policy

by Sheldon Richman October 10, 2012

President Barack Obama, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have at least one thing in common when it comes to Iran. All are guilty of flagrant self-contradiction. Each says that a nuclear-armed Iran could not be effectively contained the way the U.S. government contained the nuclear-armed Soviet Union and Communist China. Yet each also says ...

Should More People Pay Taxes?

by Laurence M. Vance October 9, 2012

Should people pay more taxes or should more people pay taxes? Liberals and Democrats usually opt for the former while conservatives and Republicans generally prefer the latter. Libertarians not only don’t take sides, they reject both propositions. While campaigning for president, on September 12, 2008, in Dover, New Hampshire, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois said in a speech, And I can ...

The Institutionalized Racism of Affirmative Action

by Wendy McElroy October 8, 2012

A few days ago, the Rev. Al Sharpton dramatically warned that “50 years of progress” for blacks could be “erased with one ruling” by the United States Supreme Court. The case is Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which the Court will hear on October 10. At issue is whether the Equal Protection Clause of ...

Reading List for Attendees at FFF/YAL College Civil Liberties Tour

by Future of Freedom Foundation October 5, 2012

  Prepared by: Jacob Hornberger — President, The Future of Freedom Foundation Books Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic by Chalmers Johnson Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope by Chalmers Johnson American ...

In the U.S. Election, No Time for Guantánamo, But Torture Rears Its Ugly Head

by Andy Worthington October 5, 2012

Last week we were reminded by the Miami Herald that Guantánamo is not on the agenda for the forthcoming presidential election. In 2008, Barack Obama was preparing to order the prison’s closure, but his executive order in January 2009 promising to close it within a year failed to lead to the prison’s closure. This time around the ...

QE Forever and John Q. Public

by Tim Kelly October 4, 2012

The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) has voted to launch a third round of quantitative easing (QE3), this time focused on purchasing as much as $40 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities. This decision to provide liquidity ad infinitum could add nearly half a trillion to the Fed’s balance sheet annually and hold the federal-funds rate near zero ...

Debates? Let’s Call Them the Agreements

by Ken Sturzenacker October 3, 2012

Are you expecting Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to express any significant difference of opinion or policy on almost any issue you can imagine? Here’s one libertarian’s view: Not bloody likely. The broadcasts of the presidential contenders facing off are far more “Agreements” than they are “Debates”. Jobs? At much lower median wages that four years ago. That’s “recovery” for you. Unemployment? ...

Government Impossible

by Laurence M. Vance October 2, 2012

Restaurant: Impossible is a popular show on the Food Network. I don’t watch much television. Not only do I have more writing projects in the works than I have time for, but the political shows on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox that I should be watching because I write about politics make me either mad or nauseated, and sometimes both. ...

Don’t Let the Aurora Shooting Curtail the Right of Self-Defense

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 2012

The July shooting in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater, which took 12 lives and injured 58 during the midnight premier of The Dark Knight Rises, has incited the usual bitter controversy over guns. One side says tighter gun restrictions could have prevented the horrible incident that night. The other responds that more guns in the hands of law-abiding people ...

Don’t Trust the Feds’ Happiness Index

by James Bovard October 1, 2012

The Obama administration is financing research to devise a new gauge for Americans’ happiness. A National Academy of Sciences panel is currently analyzing proposals for surveying Americans’ “subjective well-being.” But there are grave perils in any “national happiness index” Uncle Sam might concoct. Critics increasingly complain that the Gross Domestic Product does not accurately measure citizens’ quality of life. The ...

Social Engineering through Criminal Law

by Ridgway K. Foley Jr. October 1, 2012

Stealth defines the statist who seeks to channel all human conduct as he thinks best. Such external human controls upon personal action represent the antithesis of liberty. This essay explicates a particularly surreptitious and dangerous means currently employed to dominate and command free men who attempt to act freely. Contrary to the essential statist doctrine, men and women who believe in ...