Daily Articles

Technology and Government Power — A Deadly Cocktail for Freedom? (video)

by Bob Barr December 7, 2007

On June 4, 2007, Bob Barr gave the following Speech at FFF’s conference Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties. The speech can viewed below in its entirety.

The Ultimate Tax Cut

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2007

Since it is presidential campaign season, we will inevitably be treated to the usual discourse about tax cuts. Some candidates will call for tax cuts, undoubtedly as a way to bribe voters into voting for them. Others will resist the call, undoubtedly in fear that their favorite government program might not receive desired funding. In actuality, all the tax-cut ...

America’s Anti-Militarist Tradition

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2007

The right wing went apoplectic at the skepticism that greeted Gen. David Petraeus’s recent testimony about the alleged success of the military escalation in Iraq. It was as though a member of the military was incapable of engaging in spin to support his commander in chief’s war policy. President Bush summed up this attitude revealingly when he said it ...

The 9/11 Servility Reflex

by James Bovard December 1, 2007

Many citizens react to their rulers like little kids who recognize that a stranger is acting suspiciously and may be up to no good — but then decide whether to trust the man depending on the type of candy he pulls from his pockets. It is as if a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup trumps the ...

Iraq after the Gulf War: Sanctions, Part 2

by Rahul Mahajan December 1, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 Perhaps the most notable thing about the sanctions is the long delay before allowing Iraq to sell oil, its only significant source of external income: four years until passage of UNSCR 986, five until Iraq accepted it, five and a half until oil sales started. Since the United States was seemingly willing ...

I Suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Part 3

by James Glaser December 1, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 When I started this series I gave the following definition for what Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is, but there are hundreds if not thousands of definitions to choose from if you search them out. I learned from ...

Set the Prisoners Free

by Scott McPherson December 1, 2007

School is the cheapest police. — Horrace Mann, first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education The immense edifice of teacher instruction and schooling in general rests on the shaky hypothesis that expert intervention in childhood produces better people than might otherwise occur. I’ve come to doubt that. — John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education In criminal-justice ...

Ending America’s Domestic Quagmire

by Paul Armentano December 1, 2007

A growing number of political pundits are questioning America’s military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some are beginning to draw parallels to lawmakers’ much longer domestic war effort: the so-called war on drugs. The comparison is apropos. For nearly 100 years, starting with the passage of America’s first federal anti-drug law in 1914, lawmakers have relied on the mantra ...

The Nightmare of the New Deal, Part 1

by George Leef December 1, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes (HarperCollins, 2007); 464 pages. If you ask a random sample of Americans who know (or think they know) something about U.S. history to discuss the twin subjects of the Great Depression and the ...

Bully of the Playground: How Washington Makes Enemies Abroad and Undermines Freedom at Home

by Ted Galen Carpenter November 30, 2007

On June 4, 2007, Ted Galen Carpenter gave the following Speech at FFF’s conference Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties. The speech can viewed below in its entirety.

The Myth of a Risk-free Life

by Tibor R. Machan November 28, 2007

Skiers sometimes die, as do mountain climbers and motorcyclists and bicyclists, because what they do routinely is dangerous, risky. Indeed, there is very little in human life that does not entail some measure of risk, even fatal risk. When I moved into Silverado Canyon in Orange Country, CA, I did so ...

Iraq 3.0

by Sheldon Richman November 28, 2007

One gets the feeling that even the White House realizes the mess it’s made of Iraq. The other day the newspapers reported that the Bush administration has scaled back its objectives rather substantially. We might call it Iraq 3.0. First the plan was to create a democratic paradise which, domino-like, ...