Daily Articles

An “Austrian” Agenda for Post-Coronavirus Recovery

by Richard M. Ebeling May 8, 2020

Everyone is hoping for the light at the end of the tunnel with the coronavirus crisis. There are few who are not exhausted with fear of the illness, and with worry and despair about the economic disaster caused by the government lockdowns and stay-at-home dictates. So, eyes are turned to a post-coronavirus world and what it will be like. ...

Six Things the COVID-19 Panic Has Taught Us

by Michael Tennant May 7, 2020

The responses of public officials and the American public to the COVID-19 pandemic have been highly instructive. Here are just a few of the things we have learned. No matter how many times the government has lied to them before, most people will believe its next tale. Remember these whoppers? “What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.” ...

Should Social Security Benefits Be Means-Tested?

by Laurence M. Vance May 4, 2020

The United States may be the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” the “sweet land of liberty,” the “land of the noble free,” and a “city on a hill,” but it is, unfortunately, also a vast welfare state. Indeed, as has been pointed out by economist Walter Williams of George Mason ...

The Conquest of America by Communist China

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2020

So, “Who’s in Charge?” That is the question that David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, recently (April 25, 2020) asked in terms of dealing with the coronavirus crisis. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman also recently insisted that “We Need Great Leadership” (April 21, 2020), and he was sure what it looks like. While the efforts of individuals, ...

Socialism, American Style, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2020

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5  | Part 6 In September 1990, the first year of The Future of Freedom Foundation’s existence, FFF published an article I wrote entitled “Letting Go of Socialism.” The article’s opening paragraph stated, Socialism has held the world in its grip since the ...

The REAL ID Act Ravages Our Liberty

by James Bovard May 1, 2020

National ID cards have been atop the command-and-control political wish list for decades. In the 1990s, Republican Congresses shot down efforts to move toward national identification cards. However, after 9/11, “everything changed” and politicians seized the chance to unleash far more snooping and create potentially hundreds of millions of dossiers on American citizens. Congress passed the REAL ID Act in ...

Liberal Democracy versus Democratic Socialism versus Social Democracy

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2020

The presidential primary campaign of Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party nomination and the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress from New York have once again raised the issue of the desirability for and the possibility of a system of “democratic socialism.” For many of their critics and opponents the operative word is “socialism” in their vision of a new ...

Democrats, Republicans, and the Constitution

by Laurence M. Vance May 1, 2020

In July 2017, after President Donald Trump had been in office for less than six months, Congressmen Al Green (D-Calif.) and Brad Sherman (D-Tex.) introduced in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives an article of impeachment (H. Res. 438) against the president for “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Said Green, “I am introducing Articles of Impeachment to begin a long ...

The Tortured Legacy of the Mexican-American War, Part 2

by Danny Sjursen May 1, 2020

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 The Constitution was, and is, emphatic on one matter, at least: only Congress possesses the power to declare war. In the 1840s, an era of legislative preeminence, even the high-risk Tyler blanched, aware that the agreement exceeded his authority. ...

Donald J. Trump: Patient Zero of Lockdown Nation’s Covid Hysteria, Part 1

by David Stockman April 30, 2020

According to the CDC’s long established mortality models, 687,000 Americans were supposed to die during the 12 weeks between February 1 and April 18. But only 666,000 actually complied. So the Grim Reaper was deprived of his seasonally adjusted mortality quota, even as 21,000 families were spared, at least temporarily, of the loss and grief which accompanies the passing of ...

American Exceptionalism Scars Both Victim and Victimizer

by Danny Sjursen April 29, 2020

Manicheanism means murder. Amidst the present pandemic, America’s irrationally dyadic global typecasting, and consequent capacity for cruelty, are on unusually flagrant display. Consider this the macabre gift of COVID-catalyzed reality exposure. From Uncle Sam’s escalation of proxy war with - and threats to bomb - Iran, to the maintenance and tightening ...

Herbert Spencer on Equal Liberty and the Free Society

by Richard M. Ebeling April 27, 2020

Social, political and economic crises, including those connected with a viral pandemic, absorb so much of our attention that it is easy to miss or forget anniversaries marking when famous figures may have been born or had earlier passed away. In this case, April 27th marks the 200th birthday of British classical liberal and advocate of laissez-faire, Herbert Spencer, ...