“That government is best which governs not at all,”
Said Henry David Thoreau,
But what did he know?
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“Liberty:  not the daughter but the mother of order,”
Declared Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
And then he passed on.
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“When the government is too intrusive, people lose their spirit,”
Noted Lao-tzu,
As I would, too.
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“Great men are almost always bad men,”
Declared Lord Acton
―some wisdom to act on.
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“Let [...]

George W. Bush is launching a free-market think tank. The Washington Times reports:
With the Obama administration establishing far-reaching controls in the auto, real estate and financial sectors, Mr. Bush said that “the role of government is not to create wealth, but to create the conditions that allow entrepreneurs and innovators to thrive.”
So the guy who [...]

Steel girders crashing down on commuters crossing the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge; drivers killed in Minneapolis as an overwater link on a major interstate highway collapsed underneath them; hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans as levees supposedly designed to protect the city from catastrophic flooding were overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge.
There is an [...]

As an addendum to an earlier post citing the Obamas’ and various politicos’ (including Treasury Secretary Geithner and Tom Daschle) problems either understanding or adhering to the nation’s tax law, former Socialist Congressman Ron Dellums has apparently also decided that taxes are for the “little people.” He and his wife Cynthia owe at least $239,000 [...]

I’ve subscribed to Newsweek for more than 30 years.  I started subscribing in the 1970s, partly because I wanted a magazine that summarized the week’s news (plenty of choices there) and partly because Newsweek ran a monthly column by Milton Friedman.
When I started subscribing I didn’t notice what some might call a liberal bias in [...]

Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs is interviewed here by Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox News’ program, “Freedom Watch,” regarding the utter folly of the gigantic federal spending programs first started under George W. Bush and now enormously expanded by Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress. Prolonging the recovery amidst enormous economic confusion and new [...]

Those of us laboring for academic reform often feel like Sisyphus, rolling a rock up the hill only to have it come crashing down again. The gods of academe seem to have condemned higher education to inevitable decay.
That thought came to me as I read about the demise of an institute (at Hamilton College) that [...]

Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs is interviewed on Fox News’ “Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano” on how Barack Obama is Herbert Hoover’s true “Progressive” heir as an economic interventionist, corporatist and protectionist. Hoover’s policies caused the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt then continued and greatly expanded such policies as his New Deal, deepening [...]

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a year old now.  On September 19, 2008, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the need for a $700 billion program to purchase toxic assets held by banks to prevent a financial meltdown, and after some modification TARP was rapidly approved by Congress on October 3.  Looking back after [...]

According to ABC News, Washington D.C. police initially estimated that a crowd of 60-70,000 people traveled from across the U.S. to participate in a massive demonstration (in the rain) not just against ObamaCare but the overall, huge explosion of federal power, spending and debt. Updated estimates (see London Daily Mail and San Francisco Examiner) place [...]