Daily Articles

End the Alcohol Nanny State

by Laurence M. Vance March 4, 2024

The one substance that government at all levels in the United States has sought to regulate and tax like no other is alcohol. The latest nanny-state infringement on liberty, property, and commerce is a bill that has been introduced in the Tennessee legislature to prohibit the sale of cold beer in an attempt to curtail drunk driving. The

Understanding Freedom and Faith in Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2024

There are two major obstacles to achieving a genuinely free society in our lifetime: one, a lack of understanding of the genuine principles of freedom, and two, a lack of faith in freedom. The first obstacle involves principally nonlibertarians. The second obstacle involves everyone, including libertarians. If someone were to conduct a survey among the American people today in which people ...

The Never-Ending Federal Surveillance Crime Spree

by James Bovard March 1, 2024

Last December, one of the most intrusive provisions in the federal statute book was set to expire. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorizes the National Security Agency to vacuum up trillions of emails and other data. A bevy of bipartisan members of Congress called for radically curtailing those nullifications of Americans’ privacy. But the effort to ...

The Case for Libertarian Internationalism

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2024

Libertarians and conservatives share a common enemy. Whether it is described as liberalism, progressivism, collectivism, or socialism; whether its adherents term themselves liberals, progressives, Democrats, or democratic socialists — the agenda is the same: paternalism, universal health care, free college tuition, more gun-control laws, social justice, green energy, environmentalism, climate-change alarmism, affirmative action, government-mandated family leave, government-funded child care, ...

Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian Theory of Money, Banking, and the Business Cycle, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2024

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 One hundred years ago, in 1924, the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises issued a revised German-language edition of his 1912 book Theorie des Geldes und der Unlaufsmittel. Ninety years ago, in 1934, there appeared an English-language edition under the title The Theory ...

Unheralded Resisters in Nazi Germany: The Edelweiss Pirates, Part 3

by Wendy McElroy March 1, 2024

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In his essay “Youthful Rebellion as Legitimate Resistance Against the Third Reich,” history professor John Charles Marsland II described the acceleration: By 1942, HJ leaders could not cross the street without incident and many stopped attending their meetings out of fear of molestation. The EP ...

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 ...