Topic: Government

Restricting Freedom Didn’t Defeat Covid

– May 15, 2021

“Even though freedom is its own wondrous virtue, panicky politicians erased it in 2020 on the supposition that personal and economic desperation was the best solution for a spreading virus. Historians will marvel at the abject stupidity of the political class in 2020.” ~ John Tamny

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Frank Knight and the Place of Principles in Economics and Politics

– May 14, 2021

“This counterrevolution can be repulsed and reversed. But it will require the type of defenses of the principle of freedom in politics and economics that Frank Knight called for and reasoned about seventy years ago. We must cultivate a new age of enlightened liberty so as not to fully sink into a new dark age of tyranny and despair.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

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Monetary Control: Central Banks Today

– May 13, 2021

“The Fed’s operating framework systematically tends towards the abuse of life, liberty, and property. If we want to fix this, we need to take a much closer look at the relationship between money and freedom. Only if we understand this relationship, philosophically, economically, and historically, will we be in a position to fix what’s gone wrong with our monetary institutions.” ~ Alexander W. Salter

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The Many Errors of the Dred Scott Decision

– May 13, 2021

“The Dred Scott Decision reworked the history of the country to fit a narrative. It was factually wrong in stating that the country was founded on racism. The country was founded on the ideals of freedom and equality, and the continuation of slavery in half of the country was a contradiction of those ideals. Most of the Founders hoped for a peaceful resolution of that contradiction; but, as we know, slavery was only ended by a civil war.” ~ Clifford F. Thies

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Regulatory Capture, Teacher Unions, and CDC Abuse

– May 12, 2021

“There is no doubt that this unprecedented and deviant child experiment has inflicted significant harm on its human subjects. Thus, while some might say that it is wrong to demonize public health officials, we say that their actions, especially as they relate to children, have been demonic. Regulatory capture of the CDC by teachers unions is a scandal of epic proportions.” ~ Donald S. Siegel & Robert M. Sauer

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What Happened to All Those Jobs?

– May 12, 2021

“We have far fewer jobs than we expected to have and, at the current tepid recovery, a decade’s journey to return to the health we had just prior to Covid-19. This is, of course, bad enough. Sober reflection, though, should lead quickly to the conclusion that the ruling class in Washington will manage to do even more to harm the economy in the meantime. It’s what they do, after all.” ~ Antony Davies & James R. Harrigan

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Big Brother Depends on Little Brothers

– May 12, 2021

“Resistance starts gently by recognizing our own mental processes that make us vulnerable to the current of conformist thought. With mental alertness we attune ourselves to spiritual strength. With self-study, we prepare for peaceful exchange of ideas with those currently choosing to be little brothers. There is still enough freedom in America that without the support of little brothers, Big Brother will find it has no power of its own.” ~ Barry Brownstein

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Hayek’s Still Relevant Response to Today’s Paternalist Planners

– May 11, 2021

“Majorities can be as intolerant and tyrannical as the worst absolute monarchs of the past, if not even more so. What has failed, in Hayek’s view, has not been the idea of democracy as such, but the particular form of democracy that developed over the last two hundred years, under which fewer and fewer corners of individual life are safe from what coalitions of special interest groups that form majorities on Election Day can impose on the rest of society.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

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The Buchanan Thesis

– May 11, 2021

“Those of us who decry large and intrusive government should demand that government annually balance its budget. The tighter the constraint on government’s access to resources, the freer and more prosperous the people will be.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

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Free Expression

– May 10, 2021

“Government can punish those found after due process to have willfully abused tools like speech (or firearms) to the detriment of others but it cannot Constitutionally limit the availability of such crucial tools simply because some people might use them to cause harm. The best policies reduce asymmetries of information or power rather than exacerbate them and that usually means freeing expression, not excluding ideas or the people who espouse them.” ~ Robert E. Wright

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Biden’s “America the Beautiful” Vision Ignores Feds’ Dreadful Record

– May 10, 2021

“Biden’s ’30 by 30′ will likely become simply another pork barrel environmental program which deluges their friends and donors with subsidies. But there is no reason to expect ‘America the Beautiful’ to be less of a debacle than FDR’s farm programs, Eisenhower’s Soil Bank, or the Conservation Reserve Program. If political hot air was all that was required to achieve ‘America the Beautiful,’ the United States would have become paradise long ago.” ~ James Bovard

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The Dubious Premise for Expanding the Regulatory State

– May 10, 2021

“Arbitrary political interests are meant to be enacted by the legislative process where they can be debated, vetted and their architects ultimately held accountable. Looking to the regulatory state, which can essentially act as judge, jury, and executioner, to pass one’s political mandate not only exhibits a disdain for the lives of individual citizens but is also tyrannical in nature.” ~ Ethan Yang

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