Notes on War and Freedom

Written by Ramsey Clark, as published in The Voluntaryist, August 1992. War is more destructive of freedom than any other human activity. Any violation of civil liberties is easily justified in times of war and the threat of war, however unnecessary for security, harmful to its victims, irrational, unfair, or even detrimental to the war…

A Short History of Liberty

Written by Dean Russell for The Freeman in 1955. From biblical times onward, the history of liberty and progress among various peoples seems to have followed a remarkably similar pattern. There are exceptions, of course—and the time element varies widely—but the pattern may be generally described by ten key ideas in sequence:1. Bondage. At some…

Constitutions: No Authority

Guest post by Butler Shaffer. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, June 1987. I recently returned from a conference at which a participant took frenzied issue with me over the question of whether the Constitution is capable of protecting human liberty. I took the position that no Constitution can guarantee our freedoms, because it is impossible…