"The myth of Lincoln cannot stand up under scrutiny," says Thomas DiLorenzo, "and after all these years, the word is finally getting out." Mises.org interviews DiLorenzo on his new book and its thesis that Lincoln's legacy was not freedom but the consolidated state. The book's high sales are as notable as the explosive controversy that has erupted about his thesis.
What set in motion the explosive technological advance of the last 250 years was the world of ideas. Great thinkers began to understand the internal logic of the market economy and its potential for liberating mankind from poverty, dependency, and despotic rule.
How does the left get away with describing right-wing thought as Talibanish, especially when compared to the left-wing agenda of speech codes, economic regulation, and authoritarian intervention in every aspect of American private life?
In uncertain times such as today, it is too easy to look the other way when the federal government expands its power and curtails our freedoms. In a fit of rhetorical frenzy, the attorney general himself told a Senate panel that those who scare "peace-loving people" with "phantoms of lost liberty" are themselves aiding terrorists.
The poor security of U.S. airlines is a predictable outcome of government regulations and subsidies. Only through complete privatization of the industry will consumers be able to fly cheaply and safely.
The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom. It is no accident that the age of capitalism became also the age of government by the people.
Patriotism and nationalism are powerful forces weighing on the public conscience in the aftermath of the attacks. It makes it very unpopular to ask certain questions and to wonder certain things.
Once again, we are back to trusting the government to protect us, even at a time when property owners are begging for the right to provide their own protection.
President Bush claims that the war on terror "will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." Does that include the ELF?
