Daily Articles

9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2022

Part 1 | Part 2 Declaring that “veteran suicide is one of the greatest crises of our time,” Boston’s NPR news station, WBUR, reported that “since Sept. 11, 2001, just over 30,000 veterans have died by suicide — four times more than the number of U.S. military personnel who died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The website military.com ...

Will Politicians Revive American Slavery?

by James Bovard January 1, 2022

In the wake of America’s disastrous Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment was enacted to prohibit involuntary servitude. Unfortunately, top newspapers, pundits, and think tanks are now campaigning to nullify that prohibition. Apparently, slavery was evil not because of the unjust subjugation but because plantation owners, not politicians, were the profiteers. Politicians have long been hustling to establish their prerogative to ...

Boosting American Standing on the World Stage

by Laurence M. Vance January 1, 2022

What do a member of the left-leaning New York Times editorial board and a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI) have in common? Usually, not very much. But when it comes to how America can boost its standing on the world stage, they are in perfect agreement: The United States should give away more COVID-19 vaccines ...

Government Planning Brings neither Freedom, Prosperity, nor Equality

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2022

America is in the grip of a serious counterrevolution against the ideas and ideals upon which the country was founded. Whether it concerns fears about the physical environment or frustrations with the domestic economy or charges of society-wide “systemic racism,” the presumption is that the problem stems from people having too much freedom or the wrong types of freedom. The ...

The Fabric of Civilization

by Neera K. Badhwar January 1, 2022

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World  by Virginia Postrel, Basic Books, 2021, 320 pages. Virginia Postrel’s Fabric of Civilization is a fascinating, deeply researched tale of the development of fabric. Starting with fiber to make string, it takes us through the development of thread, to natural fabric, and finally to synthetics. It tells of ...

Leave Scrooge (and the Rest of Us) Alone!

by Scott McPherson December 24, 2021

The Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol is a beloved piece of literature, a mainstay of the holiday season. First published in 1843 and retold countless times in film and on the stage, it tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserable old corn merchant and landlord who delights in his own misery and the misfortune of others. For almost ...

Help FFF Advance Liberty in the Year Ahead

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 23, 2021

Today, we have one of the best opportunities in our lifetime to advance liberty. It might not seem like that, especially given the massive assaults on our liberty and well-being brought on by COVID-19 regulations, but the fact is that we are living in a time in which many people are thinking, pondering, and reflecting on the situation in ...

The Christmas Baby Born in a Police State

by John W. Whitehead December 20, 2021

“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace ...

A Republic, Not a Democracy

by Scott McPherson December 17, 2021

Late-night political hack and former comedian Stephen Colbert doesn't usually warrant any notice, but he stumbled onto an important truth recently. Lamenting the possibility that the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade, he whined that if only 27 percent of Americans (according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll) support such a move, and the court doesn't vote the ...

Carl Menger’s Free Market Advice to an Austrian Crown Prince

by Richard M. Ebeling December 15, 2021

Imagine that you could be the tutor to a future king. What lessons and advice would you offer for the economic policies he should follow when he assumed the throne? That is what Carl Menger, founder of the Austrian School of Economics, was able to do in a series of private lectures that he delivered to Crown Prince Rudolf, ...

Marijuana Legalization vs. Marijuana Freedom

by Laurence M. Vance December 14, 2021

There is a difference between marijuana legalization and marijuana freedom. Since 1996, 36 states have legalized the medical use of marijuana. Since 2012, 18 states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. In addition, 27 states have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. The District of Columbia has done all three. The medical use of marijuana is legal in ...

American Cities Are Socialist Nightmares

by Scott McPherson December 10, 2021

America's cities are petri dishes of “progressive” governance. Anyone who cares to see the consequences of radical left-wing policies need look no further than our country's urban centers. From the monstrous modernist architecture to decaying infrastructure, they look more like Soviet hell than the once-thriving metropolises that were the envy of the modern world. The English historian James Bryce called ...