Tag Archives | american revolution

Freedom-in-Chains

Ten Thousand Czars (1999)

Here’s a piece spun off from my 1999 book, Freedom in Chains.  In 2007, New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich was writing a piece on czars, called me up and asked if I was still a libertarian.  I burst out laughing – but his question was understandable inside the Beltway.  From his article: “‘I don’t […]

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Democracy versus Liberty

Trump’s presidency is helping Americans recognize that voting is no guarantee for individual liberty. This is perhaps the most frequently forgotten lesson in politics.  Many liberals were convinced that Obama’s election somehow made Americans’ constitutional rights safe, while many conservatives believed that Al Gore’s defeat in 2000 provided the same windfall.  In reality, no president can be […]

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Leviathan_by_Thomas_Hobbes

Freeman: Government as Slaveowner (2000)

UPDATE: Here are some perhaps improved versions of a few lines in the following essay (thanks to Twitter space limits): Government worship tautology: because government has almost boundless power, it is presumably the source of all rights. *A good definition of liberty must provide a barricade that 10,000 federal agents cannot breach. *Tax burdens are […]

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FFF: How Trade Wars Shaped Early American History

  Future of Freedom, June 2014 How Trade Wars Shaped Early American History, Part 1 by James Bovard Fair trade is once again a rallying cry for many Americans. Many contemporary leftists believe that the U.S. government should impose restrictions or tariffs on imported goods that are alleged to have been produced by underpaid or […]

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