Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
In his book The New Puritans, Andrew Doyle observed, “We have seen the evangelists of ‘social justice’ take control of our major cultural, political, educational and corporate institutions, thirsty for opportunities to be seen to vanquish devils, be they real or imagined.” Doyle warned, “these illiberal trends… threaten to sabotage all the progress we have […]
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
George Orwell had little hope that the lies of totalitarians would be exposed by a free press. His essay “The Freedom of the Press” was intended as the preface to Animal Farm, but was not published until 1972. Orwell revealed that the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Information (MOI) (created during the Second World War) advised Orwell’s […]
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Famously, at the start of his 1849 essay, “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau observed, “That government is best which governs least.” Few policymakers or politicians during COVID were influenced by Thoreau, who also pointed out that “government never furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got of its […]
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Recently, the AIER’s Senior Editor James Harrigan asked rhetorically, “When was the last time a politician of any description used the phrase ‘sacred honor’ with a straight face?” Jefferson, Harrigan pointed out, wasn’t “inventing the Declaration from whole cloth,” but instead, he was capturing “the American mind.” In his evocative Fourth of July essay “The […]
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
It is easy to think the roots of tyranny lie outside of ourselves, but perhaps we are looking too far away. In Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a Czech refugee living in Paris joins a protest march against the 1968 Soviet invasion of her homeland. To her surprise, the refugee could not […]
Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
Editors’ Note: In the current election cycle, Republicans remain concerned that they have lost the college-educated suburban soccer moms. Democrats hope to use abortion as the wedge issue to keep moms from drifting towards Republicans because of crime, illegal immigration, and the economy. There is a certain irony here that conservatives need to use to […]
Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
You might be, as I am, alarmed about the future of liberty. How deep are the roots of liberty when so many submit to authoritarian measures in response to COVID, and approve the use of coercion against those less eager to comply? Unable to visualize alternatives, public acceptance of top-down coercive solutions to COVID demonstrates […]
Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
Editors’ Note: After all the kerfuffle about the Will Smith “slap” at the Oscars, the following essay is of some importance. It also applies to the many political radicals today, whose internal mental issues now seem to form public policy. We see this constantly on our university campuses and now quite frequently in our major […]
Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is committed to a vaccine solution for COVID-19. Bureaucrats at the CDC believe you can’t be trusted to see “critical” data on COVID hospitalizations or the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine boosters; you might “misinterpret” the findings and be less inclined to get vaccinated or boosted. The NewYork Times reports, […]
Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
As an economist, my job is not to help you make health decisions about Covid vaccines. Your health history, age, subjective evaluation of risk, and many other factors make recommendations from me meaningless. I can, however, increase your awareness of distortions that lead to poor decision-making. I’m not talking about the most apparent distortion—mandates. Mandates […]
Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
Recently I was drawn to reread Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. Passages I previously overlooked leaped from the pages as if in bold print, signaling imminent danger to human progress. Hayek’s message never seemed more prescient and timeless: The descent into totalitarianism can happen anywhere. Astonishing progress has been made in the past few centuries. […]
Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
The searing Russian novel Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman is one of the greatest examinations of totalitarianism ever written. Based on his experiences under Stalin, Grossman depicts how humanity withers under tyranny. Grossman’s book is not a dystopian novel, yet few books better teach how force is used to control a population by not only restricting […]
Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
Dr. Max Jacobson became known as Dr. Feelgood and “Miracle Max” for treating wealthy celebrities with concoctions, “mixing amphetamines, vitamins, enzymes, tranquilizers, placenta, and anything else that inspired him.” Jacobson’s most famous client was President Kennedy, who became sadly dependent on Jacobson’s “elixirs.” How much speed, narcotics, and other powerful drugs Jacobson injected into Kennedy […]