Daily Articles

The Debt-Limit Mess

by Sheldon Richman October 26, 2011

Last summer’s debt-limit controversy, with all its predictions of apocalypse, raises a rather important question no one but libertarians seems interested in: Why are the 535 members of Congress and the president of the United States allowed so much power that their mere failure to permit the themselves to borrow more money had the potential to severely disrupt the ...

The Jacob Hornberger Show: October 22, 2011

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 24, 2011

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

Airport Security Is Coming to a Highway Near You

by Wendy McElroy October 24, 2011

The transition to a police state will not come about with a dramatic coup d'etat, with battering rams and marauding militia. As we have experienced first-hand in recent years, it will creep in softly, one violation at a time, until suddenly you find yourself being subjected to random patdowns and security sweeps during your morning commute to work or ...

Drone Warfare Is Fraught with Danger

by Sheldon Richman October 24, 2011

One can understand why Libyans would celebrate the end of the Qaddafi dictatorship. But the American people should nonetheless be concerned about what the U.S. government did in North Africa. On the day Qaddafi was killed, the New York Times reported that “the death … is the latest victory for a new American approach to war: few if any troops ...

Obamas Dictatorial Assassination Program

by James Bovard October 23, 2011

The Obama administration now claims the authority to kill American citizens without a trial, without notice, and without any chance for targets to legally object. The “targeted killing” program of George W. Bush’s administration has been radically expanded to include Americans far from any war zone. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified last year that the targeting-to-kill decision ...

The Road to the Permanent Warfare State, Part 6

by Gregory Bresiger October 22, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 |Part 12 |Part 13 If there is a single factor which more than other explains the predicament in ...

Visible Projects, Hidden Destruction

by Ralph R. Reiland October 21, 2011

Today’s crop of central planners and big spending politicians could learn a thing or two about economics from Henry Hazlitt’s classic bestseller, Economics in One Lesson, published in 1946. Common sense doesn’t have an expiration date. “There is no more persistent and influential faith in the world today than faith in government spending,” Hazlitt wrote. “Everywhere government spending is presented ...

Hope and Change? Hardly

by Rich Schwartzman October 21, 2011

George W. Bush was a disgrace to the presidency. He initiated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he ran roughshod over civil liberties here at home in the name of what he called a war on terrorism. Barack Obama is worse. Not only has Obama kept the United States engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he’s upped the U.S. military ...

Conservatives and American Empire

by Tim Kelly October 21, 2011

American conservatives who claim to value liberty and limited government but continue to take pride in the country’s bloated military establishment would do well to remember Randolph Bourne’s pithy declaration “war is the health of the state.” Conservatives will argue that the basic function of the state is to defend the country against foreign invasion or attack; therefore, allowing the ...

Would McCain Have Been Any Better?

by Laurence M. Vance October 20, 2011

It has been said that every president makes us nostalgic for his predecessor. But as bad as the presidency of Barack Obama has turned out to be, I still look back on the Bush years with regret rather than longing. George Bush will go down in history — at least among proponents of liberty, property, and peace — as one ...

Korea Shows All That Is Wrong With U.S. Foreign Policy

by Laurence M. Vance October 19, 2011

The tension on the Korean peninsula escalated late last year when South Korea began live-firing drills off its coastline. That was after North and South Korea shelled each other for the first time since the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. U.S. forces in the area went on high alert even as the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George ...

Market Failure: An Argument Both For and Against Government (video)

by David Friedman October 19, 2011

On Ocotber 5, 2011, David Friedman gave the following speech at The Future of Freedom Foundations Economic Liberty Lecture Series. The speech can viewed below in its entirety. David Friedman is Professor of Law at Santa Clara University and the author of The Machinery of Freedom. He is a graduate of Harvard University and holds a Ph.D. in Physics ...