I was vaccinated for life against communism after visiting East Berlin in 1977. A Dutch lesbian rescued me from the communist secret police before we investigated the spookiest library I ever saw. From FFF online conference
Tag Archives | socialism
My 2025 Warning: “You will own nothing and be happy. Obey.”
From my 2025 Mises Institute Summit speech: James Bovard surveys attacks on property rights—from “open-fields” searches and no-knock raids to eminent domain and civil asset forfeiture—showing how each erodes privacy and freedom.
Bartering Across East Bloc Borders (Wall St. Journal, 1987)
Wall Street Journal Europe, January 25, 1987. Bartering Across East Bloc Borders by James Bovard Socialism makes bad neighbors. This past summer, a Czech border guard stopped a Polish family leaving Czechloslovakia and ordered a Polish kid to take off his new Czech shoes “because taking children’s shoes out of the country is prohibited.” The […]
FDR’s Corrupt Concept of Freedom
RealClearHistory, January 6, 2023 FDR’s Corrupt Concept of Freedom The “Four Freedoms” Speech: FDR’s Worst Perversion of Freedom The “four freedoms” offered citizens no security from the state since it completely ignored the rights guaranteed in the original Bill of Rights that restricted government power. by James Bovard Franklin Roosevelt did more than any other […]
Jamaica: No Free Market, No Miracle (1987)
This old article popped up in a Google search so I figured I would send it for another lap around the track. The Freeman, December 1987 (Foundation for Economic Education) Jamaica: No Free Market, No Miracle by James Bovard James Bovard, a widely published writer on economic affairs, writes frequently on international developments. An earlier […]
Idiot Policies Funnier in Portuguese?
Mises Brasil [thanks for translating! Original English version is here; my 1987 Wall Street Journal oped is here] Alguns fatos cômicos (e patéticos) sobre o comércio internacional dentro do bloco soviético by James Bovard, November 12, 2019 Quando não estão matando, socialistas são uma comédia de erros Uma das maiores contribuições de Ludwig von […]
My First Time to East Berlin
MY FIRST TIME IN EAST BERLIN by James Bovard This is the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall — one of the most glorious moments in the modern history of freedom. I first passed through that wall while hitchhiking around Europe in the summer of 1977. After camping in West German woods […]
R R Schoettker
“There never was a good war or a bad peace.”
Jim
Montaigne also wrote: Laws remain in credit not be