Here are some links to close our September. Happy Fall everyone! Police body cameras are already failing their communities. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton sparred in the first of three presidential debates. The officer who fatally shot Terrence Crutcher in Tulsa, OK has been charged with 1st degree manslaughter. The U.S. Congress overrode a presidential […]
Toleration is the cornerstone of liberalism. Washington understood this and urged future generations to honor this commitment.
Hamilton the Musical takes liberties with American history.
Historically, oaths have been seen as essential for ensuring the loyalty and fidelity of citizens and elected officials. They were also viewed as critically important for the effective functioning of judicial systems. In the West, oaths historically invoke God as the witness of the oath taker’s veracity; written oaths often end with the phrase “so […]
The tremendous expansion of the middle class that came along with industrialization was crucial in stimulating a new market for art. The trappings of luxury that in prior centuries were limited to the extremely wealthy became more affordable, just as there were more consumers who sought to decorate their homes in ways that signaled their social level.
Editor’s note: This piece was originally posted at Libertarianism.org on August 28th, 2013. Fifty years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered “I Have a Dream,” one of the most stirring and memorable speeches in American history. In the five decades since he laid out his dream at the March on Washington for Jobs […]
The tragic story of Emmett’s journey from Chicago to Mississippi and back is a poignant tale that resonates today. We are reminded of modern day Emmetts whose short lives and senseless deaths in some way sadly represent an ongoing cycle.
Today would have been Milton Friedman’s 104th birthday. Perhaps no one in history was as successful as Friedman at introducing people to the ideas of liberty and a free society. His bi-weekly column in Newsweek distilled the concepts of freedom to current events for millions of readers, and his 1980 Free to Choose PBS series set the […]
According to policy leader Donald Trump, NAFTA is “the worst trade deal ever negotiated” and it needs to be renegotiated. He said, in fact, that it might even be worth the United States pulling out of NAFTA if better terms couldn’t be reached. Why? Trump’s worried that the trade deal is taking jobs away from […]
Though I become more and more convinced—daily, if not hourly, and, sometimes, by the minute—of the inability of the political state to accomplish anything well, anything humanely, anything merely decently, or even anything without ultimately destroying the non-political spheres of life, I do think the finest possible state and political form of governance for a […]
So you’ve overthrown an unjust government. What next? That’s the position the U.S. found itself in after sending the Declaration of Independence to the British Crown. The nascent U.S. was guided by the Lockean principle that government derives its power not by force, lineage, or scripture, but by the consent of the governed. That’s great […]
So we’ve declared independence (AKA committed Treason), have a small military not ready for war, and want to start America… now what? In July 1776, the Founders really had their work cut out for them. Not only did they have to win a war against the greatest military of the time and avoid […]
Oppressive taxation. Forcible quartering of soldiers in civilian homes. Lack of representation in government. What happens when a small group of rebels decide to declare freedom from the most powerful government in the world? The story of the American Revolution seems so second nature to many people that one may disregard the notion of listening […]
“We as a free people, have the right to stand up to an oppressor.” The colonists didn’t just declare war– they felt the need to justify themselves. Written in 1776, the Declaration of Independence asserted that as a free people they had the right to overthrow an unjust ruler– a shocking idea at the time. […]
Much like us today, American colonists thought of themselves as a free people. They viewed governance through a lens called Radical Whig Theory, a political ideology stating that individuals within a free society must jealously guard their liberty and be wary of any government encroachment. The theory holds that freedom is hard to keep, and […]
“Freedom is hard to keep and easy to lose. For that reason, when government starts encroaching, it’s incumbent on a people to fight back.” How did “No taxation without representation” become a rallying cry for war? It wasn’t just the actions of the British, but the political beliefs of the colonists that caused this reaction. […]
When we left the colonists in the first installment of America’s Founding, the British Empire had begun taxing Americans for the purpose of retaining its vast military power. But the colonists viewed the very military they were funding with ire, as soldiers often treated the colonists with disregard. In the latest installment of this series, Professor […]
The colonists got sick and tired of the increase in taxes and encroachment on their freedoms. It may have been the last straw One major grievance colonists had against England is the one most people remember learning about in school: taxes. But the concern that radicalized the colonists was less about taxes per se, and […]
What would you do if the U.S. Army came to your door tomorrow and demanded you pay taxes and tariffs on many of the items in your home? Would you fight back against them; would you declare yourself free and independent from America? Yeah, we didn’t think you’d opt for the latter route… But, believe […]
Earlier this week, Americans celebrated one of their most meaningful holidays, their country’s Independence Day. It’s a day every American knows, a day spent with food, family, and fireworks. See Also: Why the American Revolution Was Really an Economic Revolution But, many Americans don’t know the real story that led to July 4, 1776. What […]
Political slogans tend to obscure more than they enlighten. Barack Obama’s 2008 call for “Change We Need,” for example, turned out to mean almsgiving rather than substantive policy reform. Similarly, the American Revolution’s most famous slogan, “No taxation without representation,” failed to capture the essence of what colonists sought, or what, as freemen, they soon […]
In the decade before the revolution, British soldiers had started to act more like an occupying force than a source of security. Prof. Sarah Burns explains why this happened, and how increasing tensions between colonists and soldiers became one of the major reasons for declaring independence.
On the Fourth of July, we are celebrating 240 years of American independence. In light of that anniversary, we should take a few moments and reflect on the meaning of that day and the idea of America. The idea of America was a consensus around the belief in individual liberty and a government by the […]
Remembering the incredible risks our founding fathers took for us to live a life of freedom, choice, and fireworks on the 4th of July. When celebrating on Independence day, do you ever stop to think about the incredible risks the Founders took when they rebelled against British authority? They were starting a war with the […]