This New Yorker “daily cartoon” by Mick Stevens was sparked by the Veterans Administration scandal. But this is the future of our entire health care system thanks to ObamaCare and an avalanche of federal subsidies and mandates starting half a century ago. Here’s a link to a great NPR interview with two of my […]
Tag Archives | Freedom
My Zoning Crackdown Eviction Notice & 1996 Playboy Article on Zoning
Reading about the city of Richmond’s zoning code crackdown on Tom Blanton reminded me of how I fell into similar crosshairs while living in Blacksburg, Virginia in the late 1970s. Here’s the riff from Public Policy Hooligan: How An Eviction Notice Made Me an Anti-Zoning Zealot – In late 1976, I moved into a […]
Celebrating Freedom Fighter Jon Utley’s 80th Birthday
Jon Utley, the publisher of American Conservative and one of the most dedicated and principled pro-freedom and antiwar activists in the nation, celebrated his 80th birthday last month. Hundreds of folks gathered at D.C.’s Metropolitan Club to hear him speak about his life and to hear tributes from a dozen speakers ranging from Human Events […]
AmeriCorps: Idealistic Triumph or Usual Buffoonery?
From the November 2013 issue of the Future of Freedom (published by FFF) AmeriCorps: Idealistic Triumph or Usual Buffoonery? by James Bovard National service is the latest fashionable panacea for all that ails America. Time magazine ran a July cover story, “How Service Can Save Us,” on the potential benefits of pressing all young people […]
Sordid History of IRS Political Abuse
From the August 2013 issue of The Future of Freedom – The Sordid History of IRS Political Abuse by James Bovard The power to tax has long conferred the power to destroy one’s political opponents. When the latest IRS politicization scandal erupted in May, many commentators talked as if the abuses were a novelty in […]
Federal Judge Blesses Federal Seizure of Everyone’s Phone Records
If this isn’t a @#$@#$ anti-Constitution ruling, I don’t know what is. Federal judge William Pauley upheld the feds seizing all Americans phone records. Why? ““This blunt tool only works because it collects everything,” Pauley decreed. This dude should be a White House spokesman, not a federal judge. At least his decision, by creating a […]
How Abe Lincoln Destroyed Religious Freedom
The New York Times has an excellent column today on how Abe Lincoln destroyed religious freedom during the Civil War with a wink and a nod. Huntington College professor Sean Scott details how Presbyterian minister Samuel B. McPheeters was expelled from his St. Louis by a northern military commander for refusing to embrace the northern cause. McPheeters sought to keep politics out […]