COVID-19 Tested Our Commitment to Freedom by John W. Whitehead February 28, 2024 “The remedy is worse than the disease.”—Francis Bacon The government never cedes power willingly. Neither should we. If the COVID-19 debacle taught us one thing it is that, as Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged, “Rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.” Unfortunately, we still haven’t learned. We’re ...
The Global Deep State by John W. Whitehead February 23, 2024 “The madmen are in power.”— Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle The debate over U.S. foreign aid is a distraction. That’s not to say that the amount of taxpayer money flowing to foreign countries in the form of military and economic assistance is insignificant. Even at less than 1% of the federal budget, the United ...
Johnsoncare, Bushcare, Obamacare, and Trumpcare by Laurence M. Vance February 16, 2024 Former president Donald Trump has vowed to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) with his own plan. Because “Obamacare is too expensive, and otherwise, not good healthcare,” he vowed: I will come up with a much better, and less expensive, alternative! People will be happy, not sad! I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to ...
Big Brother and the Rise of the Security Industrial Complex by John W. Whitehead February 14, 2024 “Big Brother is Watching You.”―George Orwell, 1984 2024 is the new 1984. Forty years past the time that George Orwell envisioned the stomping boot of Big Brother, the police state is about to pass off the baton to the surveillance state. Fueled by a melding of government and corporate power—the rise of the security industrial complex—this watershed moment sounds a death knell ...
It’s Not Just Liberals Who Are Clamoring for Tax Increases by Laurence M. Vance February 2, 2024 President Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2024 budget called for an increase in the top marginal tax rate from 37 to 39.6 percent and a 25 percent minimum tax on Americans with wealth exceeding $100 million. But it’s not just liberals who are clamoring for tax increases. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a right-leaning think tank in Washington, ...
The Disaster of Libertarian Reform of Socialism by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2024 Prior to my discovery of libertarianism back in the late 1970s, when I was in my late 20s, I had no doubts that I lived in a free society. After all, I had attended 12 years of public (i.e., government) schools, four years of a state-supported college, and then three years of a state-supported law school. Given that indoctrination ...
Trampling on a Symbol of Liberty by James Bovard February 1, 2024 Last August, 12-year-old Jaiden Rodriguez was kicked out of a public-school classroom in Colorado Springs after school officials decreed that the Gadsden flag patch on his backpack was “disruptive to the classroom environment.” Those Colorado officials didn’t know the meaning of “disruptive.” Thanks to savvy, thoughtful retorts by Jaiden’s mother in a video showdown at the school, the incident spurred ...
Medicare & You by Laurence M. Vance February 1, 2024 Although I am not quite old enough to qualify for Medicare, I recently received in the mail a 131-page large-size book titled Medicare & You 2024: The Official U.S. Government Medicare Handbook, published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Turns out that the book was intended for a previous owner ...
The 80th Anniversary of F. A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2024 Eighty years ago, in March 1944, the British edition of Friedrich A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom was published. An American edition appeared six months later, in September 1944. During these eight decades, Hayek’s book has become a classic work in defense of the liberal free-market society and against socialist central planning. Often, when a book has received the status ...
Unheralded Resisters in Nazi Germany: The Edelweiss Pirates, Part 2 by Wendy McElroy February 1, 2024 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In the Hitler Youth, as in classrooms, the goal was to produce obedient, race-conscious Germans who were willing to die for Führer and Fatherland. Hitler explained, “After four years of the Young Folk, they go on to the Hitler Youth, where we have them for another four years.... And even ...
Terror by Night by John W. Whitehead January 31, 2024 “We’re all potential victims.”—Peter Christ, retired police officer Sometimes ten seconds is all the warning you get. Sometimes you don’t get a warning before all hell breaks loose. Imagine it, if you will: It’s the middle of the night. Your neighborhood is in darkness. Your household is asleep. Suddenly, you’re awakened by a loud noise. Barely ten seconds later, someone ...
You’re Probably Already on a Government Extremism List by John W. Whitehead January 26, 2024 “In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught.”—Hunter S. Thompson According to the FBI, you may be an anti-government extremist if you’ve: a) purchased a Bible or other religious materials, b) used terms like “MAGA” and “Trump,” c) shopped at Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cabela’s, or Bass Pro Shops, d) purchased tickets to travel by bus, cars, ...