Daily Articles

Police Nondisclosure Rises to a New Low

by Wendy McElroy January 13, 2012

KOMO News reports (Jan. 4) that the City of Seattle is taking an attorney to court because he requested public records. The legal tug-of-war that will almost certainly ensue has national importance, not only because the lawsuit sets a precedent, but also because it is part of the city’s resistance to a Department of Justice (DOJ) attempt to rein ...

Be Careful What You Wish For

by Rich Schwartzman January 13, 2012

Mitt Romney’s recent comment about how he would repeal Obamacare if elected president was almost laughable. After all, Romney was the man who brought the same type of mandatory health coverage to Massachusetts when he was that state’s governor. Government healthcare has been a political issue for generations, and interest accelerated during the Clinton years, when it was called “Hillarycare.” ...

Opposing Imperialism Is Not Isolationism

by Sheldon Richman January 12, 2012

When pundits and rival politicians call Ron Paul an “isolationist,” they mislead the American people — and they know it. They know it? How could they not: Ron Paul is for unilateral, unconditional free trade. He believes any American should be perfectly free to buy from or sell to any person in the world. In that sense — the laissez-faire ...

The Permanent Injustice of Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington January 12, 2012

When the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, opened on January 11, 2002, as part of the Bush administration’s global “war on terror,” in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it was not immediately apparent that it was a dangerous aberration from recognized laws and treaties that would tarnish America’s name for years to come. There had been ...

The Jacob Hornberger Show January 7, 2012

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 10, 2012

The Jacob Hornberger Show broadcasts live Saturday nights at 7pm EST. Visit FFF's Ustream Channel to watch the show live.

Three Views on the Drug War

by Laurence M. Vance January 10, 2012

One of the most important things the Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul said as a guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno recently was what he said during his backstage interview after the show was over. The first thing Representative Paul was asked was a question submitted by a Jay Leno Facebook fan: “Are you ...

The Prospects for Sound Money

by Tim Kelly January 9, 2012

A silver lining of the global economic crisis is that millions of people have been awakened to the importance of sound money to a modern economy. The housing bubble and subsequent bust, excessive leveraging, reckless speculation, and the sovereign-debt crisis afflicting Europe and the United States would all have been averted had money been commodity-based (e.g., gold and silver) ...

A Tired Obsession with Military Detention Plagues American Politics

by Andy Worthington January 7, 2012

Before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, there were only two ways of holding prisoners — either they were prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, or they were criminal suspects, to be charged and subjected to federal court trials. That all changed when the administration of George W. Bush threw out the Geneva Conventions, equated the Taliban with ...

A Moral Distinction

by Rich Schwartzman January 6, 2012

A new acquaintance recently asked whether she and I could get along, considering that she’s a liberal while I’m libertarian. Her second question focused on Ron Paul, likely the only person she ever heard of associated with libertarian philosophy: “Are all libertarians as conservative as Ron Paul on topics like abortion and gays?” This is where things can get complicated ...

In Defense of Affirmative Action

by Laurence M. Vance January 4, 2012

In order to put together a “diverse” student body, it is standard practice for many colleges and universities to use race as a factor in admissions. An unintended consequence of this policy is that some students who otherwise qualify for admission are denied because of their race. These race-factor admissions programs are invariably Affirmative Action programs like those that give ...

Exiting Iraq

by Sheldon Richman January 4, 2012

In his official remarks about the end of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, President Obama told an assembly of troops, The war in Iraq will soon belong to history. Your service belongs to the ages. Never forget that you are part of an unbroken line of heroes spanning two centuries — from the colonists who overthrew an empire, to your ...

What Are You Afraid Of if You Have Nothing to Hide?

by Matthew Harwood January 1, 2012

The Rights of the People: How Our Search for Safety Invades our Liberties by David K. shipler (New York: Knopf 2011), 384 pages. Late this past spring, two U.S. senators finally had the courage to look Big Brother in its inhuman, electronic eye and try to come clean on the USA PATRIOT Act. According to Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Org.) ...