Daily Articles

Progressive Promises and the Cost To Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling July 9, 2019

Promises, promises, promises. It is the season for political promises. The candidates competing to be the Democratic Party candidate for president in 2020 are out in force trying to outbid each other with promised horns-of-plenty to any and all who might be voting in that party’s primaries beginning in a mere matter of months.  There are a handful of ...

There Is Such a Thing As a Free Lunch

by Laurence M. Vance July 8, 2019

Economists who say that there is no such thing as a free lunch are forgetting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). SNAP, formerly called the food stamp program, is administered by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), but is operated by the ...

It’s Time to Declare Your Independence from Tyranny, America

by John W. Whitehead July 5, 2019

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Significance of July 4 (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation July 3, 2019

What did the American Revolution signify? What tenets of a free society are enshrined in The Declaration of Independence? FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Citadel professor Richard Ebeling discuss. Go to the podcast.

The Real Spirit of the Declaration of Independence

by Richard M. Ebeling July 2, 2019

What is America, and what does it represent? These seem to be relevant questions at a time of political discord and disagreement that appears to make peaceful and polite discussion almost impossible. Certainly, asking such questions is appropriate at that time of the year when we celebrate the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July. Everyone in the political ...

Adhering to Principle to Achieve Liberty, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2019

Part 1 | Part 2 I believe that when it comes to liberty, principles and ideals are everything. It has been principles and ideals that have given us such grand and glorious achievements as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, habeas corpus, due process of law, and trial by jury. I also believe that adherence to ...

America’s Benevolent Bombing of Serbia

by James Bovard July 1, 2019

Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton commenced bombing Serbia in the name of human rights, justice, and ethnic tolerance. Approximately 1,500 Serb civilians were killed by NATO bombing in one of the biggest sham morality plays of the modern era. As British professor Philip Hammond recently noted, the 78-day bombing campaign “was not a purely military operation: NATO also ...

Americans Didn’t Need the Original New Deal

by Laurence M. Vance July 1, 2019

We have heard much this year about how much the country needs a Green New Deal to reverse the negative effects of climate change, ensure economic security, revamp the nation’s transportation system, restore damaged ecosystems, secure a sustainable environment, and achieve justice and equality. Overlooked in all of the analyses of the Green New Deal is that Americans didn’t ...

Learning Liberty and the Power of Principles

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2019

In The Constitution of Liberty, free-market economist and social philosopher F.A. Hayek, quotes in a footnote the famous nineteenth-century scientist Louis Pasteur: “In research, chance only helps those whose minds are well prepared for it.” What Pasteur was, no doubt, getting at is that unless the researcher already has been trained in the principles and methods of his own ...

Gun Ownership: An Individual Right

by Matthew Harwood July 1, 2019

First Freedom: A Ride Through America’s Enduring History with the Gun by David Harsanyi (Threshold Editions, 2018); 321 pages. In David Harsanyi’s First Freedom, an entertaining jaunt through the gun’s important place in American history, the nationally syndicated columnist notes that the first real attempt to institute gun control was New York’s Sullivan Act. The impetus ...

The Hypocritical Double Standards of Political Outrage

by John W. Whitehead June 27, 2019

“She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.”—Kurt Vonnegut Please spare me the media hysterics and the outrage and ...

Austrian Economics on the 45th Anniversary of Its Rebirth

by Richard M. Ebeling June 24, 2019

This June marks the 45th anniversary of the revival of the Austrian School of Economics. During the week of June 15-22, 1974, the Institute for Humane Studies brought together about 50 people in South Royalton, Vermont to listen to a series of lectures by three of the leading figures of the, then, existing remnant of the Austrian School. The ...