The mainstream media poses as the nation’s political watchdog, so it’s worth examining the premises behind their political and economic coverage. A revealing example aired January 4, 2001, on CNN. The report was titled: “Tax Collecting in Russia, Not for the Faint-Hearted.” The segment was introduced by the anchor, Joie Chen, with the following
For the past several years the United Nations has proclaimed Canada to be ”The Best Place In The World To Live.” But if you value individual and economic liberty, you are not likely to agree. In continually lauding Canada year after year, what does this tell us about the UN’s goals and agenda? What is it about Canada that the UN sees as especially
[ Originally published January 4, 2002. ] John Walker, who left his California home to join the Taliban, was hardly the first American citizen to be seduced to sign onto a foreign ideological movement. As America sank into depression in the 1930s , it also embarked on what would be called its “Red Decade” of infatuation with Joseph Stalin’s Soviet
On June 18, 2002, Joseph Farah, syndicated columnist and founder of the alternative news website, WorldNetDaily.com, published a column entitled “ Why I’m not a libertarian .” (This article was preceded by his column “ Why I’m not a conservative ,” and followed by one called “ Why I’m not a liberal .”) In the June 18 piece, Mr. Farah lists several
Ludwig von Mises was born in 1881, when the Prussian autocrat Otto von Bismarck was at the height of his power, and in his book Planning for Freedom , Mises speaks of “the clash of two orthodoxies; the Bismarck orthodoxy versus the Jefferson orthodoxy.” Abraham Lincoln is incorrectly remembered as a man in the Jeffersonian tradition and as the
Mainstream economists like to attribute recessions to external events, rather than to domestic affairs. For instance, David Wyss, an economist with Standard & Poor’s in New York, said, “If you include the most recent downturn, then we have had four out of the past four recessions caused by the Middle East.” But that’s a myth. While events that
On Tuesday, December 17, 2002, Arenac Township and Omer City, Michigan held a joint referendum brought about by the actions of one woman, Cheryl Perry. The Perrys simply no longer wished to be looted by the Omer municipal government, even if it was only $41.62 a year. Omer bills itself as the Onion Capital of the World, although no one seems to
On February 4th, President Bush eulogized the life of Winston Churchill. The president described Winston Churchill as a “great man” and quickly zeroed in on the mistress that both Bush and Churchill share: war. “He was a prisoner in the Boer War, a controversial strategist in the Great War. He was the rallying voice of the Second World War, and a
Who among us isn’t familiar with the legend of Robin Hood? A friend of the oppressed, kind to women and children, a robber of the rich and giver to the poor (which has warmed the hearts of socialists and totalitarians ever since), Robin was pursued throughout Sherwood Forest by the cruel Sheriff of Nottingham. Over the following centuries, later
The stakes are high, the public is divided, and extreme rhetoric is flying. So it always is the month before the presidential election. Why? Because of the power of the office, the very existence of which is contrary to any robust notion of freedom. The President of the United States on his sole decision deploys troops anywhere in the world,
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.