Daily Articles

The Real Meaning of the Fourth of July

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 4, 2008

Contrary to popular myth, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were not great Americans. Instead, they were great Englishmen. In fact, they were as much English citizens as Americans today are American citizens. It’s easy to forget that the revolutionaries in 1776 were people who took up arms against their own government. So how is it that these ...

The Court Gets It Right on Guns

by Sheldon Richman July 2, 2008

Advocates of freedom dodged a bullet last week when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the right to keep and bear arms, the subject of the Second Amendment, is an individual, not a collective, right. Opponents of gun ownership have long maintained that the Amendment’s reference to the militia ...

Borders, Socialism, and the Free Market

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2008

There are two important things to keep in mind with respect to the immigration crisis: first, the crisis is rooted in socialism and interventionism and, second, the only solution to the immigration crisis lies in open borders and free markets. Any attempt to resolve the crisis by resorting to more socialism and more interventionism only pushes the United States ...

Just What We Need: New Reasons to Go to War

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2008

A few days before Gen. David Petraeus confirmed for Congress how overworked the military is in Iraq, President Bush was in Croatia talking about the significance of inviting that country and Albania to join NATO. “Henceforth, should any danger threaten your people, America and the NATO alliance will stand with you, and no one will be able to take your ...

The Forgotten Iraqi-Sovereignty Sham

by James Bovard July 1, 2008

The Bush administration and the Iraqi government are wrangling over the future role of the U.S. government in Iraq. The Bush team wants far more power over Iraqis than the current Iraqi government wants to concede. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in April 2008 that the dispute is concentrated on “sensitive issues,” including the U.S. military’s right to imprison ...

Reaching Out to the Left, Part 1: The Basics

by Anthony Gregory July 1, 2008

Part 1 | Part 2 Should libertarians reach out to the Left? Why might it be important? And what approach should we take in doing it? As libertarians, we have a goal of a freer world. Despite what some might think, the degree of human freedom in a society is not ...

Socialism and Medicine, Part 3

by William L. Anderson July 1, 2008

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Economic historian Robert Higgs has written that people often will hand personal responsibility to the state either when they are fearful that something will happen to them or when they have a fear of losing something. Moreover, governments are able to harness the destructive power of ...

On the Limits of Government, Part 1

by Scott McPherson July 1, 2008

Part 1 | Part 2 Where reason cannot instruct, custom may be permitted to guide; and every nation seems to consult the dictates of prudence, by a faithful attachment to those rites and opinions which have received the sanction of ages. — Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire A pillar of American constitutional ...

The Cult of Executive Power

by George Leef July 1, 2008

The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power by Gene Healy (Cato Institute, 2008); 356 pages. Just in time for the 2008 presidential campaign comes the book we need to get Americans to think sensibly about the office that the candidates are so furiously seeking.

Barack Obama: The Peace Candidate?

by Sheldon Richman June 25, 2008

Why would anyone think that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is the peace candidate? True, before President Bush sent an invasion force to Iraq and before Obama was in the Senate, he made a speech saying intervention would be a mistake. But after the invasion, in 2004, he said he wasnt sure how he would have voted when the ...

Clinton and Obama Struggle for Power

by Sheldon Richman June 21, 2008

Many Americans are spellbound by the historic contest for the Democratic presidential nomination between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Forgetting the political context, it is indeed something spectacular, even inspiring. A woman and a black man have reached a pinnacle that just a few years ago seemed impossibly far off. If it were happening outside politics, it would be something ...

FFF Conference Photos – Day 3, June 8, 2008

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 20, 2008

The following are photos from day 3 of The Future of Freedom Foundation's conference “Restoring the Republic 2008: Foreign Policy & Civil Liberties.” Q & A with Sheldon Richman David Henderson ...