Written by Wendy McElroy for Laissez Faire Today. For years, I have declared a preference for taking my chances with criminals rather than with the police. Criminals usually want my property, not to control my life or to cage me like an animal. With criminals, I can pull a gun in self-defense. Until lately, however,…
Tag: america
State Secession? No, Individual Secession.
Written by Alex Perales for Alex and Liberty. In wake of all the commotion about having individual states secede from the union to stop the great evils of the Federal Government, I think many are completely missing the point and the history that goes along with it. I disagree with those that call sympathizers of…
Freedom Works Both Ways
Written by Dean Russell for The Voluntaryist, June 1989. Everybody says he’s in favor of freedom. Even the Soviet leaders claim to be fighting for freedom. So did Hitler. Our own leaders are also for freedom. So was my slave-owning grandfather. But my grandfather failed to understand the fact that freedom is a mutual relationship;…
Thomas J. DiLorenzo
“Toward Freedom” is an Everything-Voluntary.com series sharing personal stories about the journey toward freedom. Archived stories can be found here. Submit your story to the editor. Originally published in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians. I was always an individualist, probably because I spent my childhood and adolescent years playing competitive sports. I grew up…
The State’s Anti-Responsibility Vortex
Written by Wrong-Opinion for FreedomFeens.com. Is the blood of a 16 year old American boy on the hands of Obama? If not Obama, then the military commander who passed the order to a soldier? If not him, the soldier who pressed the proverbial big red button, sending a radio signal to a drone, thereby launching…
The Criminality of the State
Written by Albert Jay Nock for the American Mercury, March, 1939. As well as I can judge, the general attitude of Americans who are at all interested in foreign affairs is one of astonishment, coupled with distaste, displeasure, or horror, according to the individual observer’s capacity for emotional excitement. Perhaps I ought to shade this…
The Virtues of Competition
Differing attitudes about market competition divide people needlessly. An appreciation of what competition makes possible could prepare the ground for a convergence between libertarians and those we might call latent libertarians, that is, those who value individual liberty but don’t yet see the market as its natural home.
The Myth of Political Freedom
Written by Carl Watner for The Voluntaryist, December 1988. How is it that citizens of the Soviet Russia become imbued with the political ideas of the United States Constitution? Why are Americans knowledgeable about the political freedoms outlined in the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.? The answer to these two questions is relatively simple. In both…
The Future Economic Destruction
Written by Dan Amoss for Laissez Faire Today. All government-directed economic activity grows at the expense of the private sector. And the election suggests that government coercion will drive even more U.S. economic activity in the future. This is a shame, because freely adjusting prices, competition, and innovation elevate living standards. Mandates, price controls, and…
How Can We Do It?
Guest post by Robert LeFevre. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, October 1988. Since I have repeatedly opposed the belief that one can advance the cause of liberty by political action, I have been asked on several occasions for an outline of the practical steps to be taken outside the political arena. How do we move…