The Biden administration is making a stark departure from past administrations in how it talks about, and treats, religious freedom. In his remarks May 12 on the release of the 2020 Report on International Religious Freedom, Secretary of State Antony Blinken correctly asserted that “religious freedom is a human right,” one at the heart of what it means to be … Continue reading Biden Abandons Religious Freedom as First Among Rights
Category: Liberty
Does the Constitution mean what it says? The answer may seem obvious, but it’s not a trick question. All too often, politicians and judges have been faced with this question and responded not with a simple “yes,” but instead with words and actions that boil down to “no” or “not entirely” or “it’s complicated.” Today in an op‐ed … Continue reading The Constitution’s Text Can’t Be Ignored
Mississippi appeared poised to join dozens of other states in allowing medical marijuana this year. Voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative in November that would have granted access to individuals with 22 debilitating conditions. Those individuals had been counting down the days to better pain management. Others, who intended to sell the product, invested money—some of … Continue reading How a Mississippi Mayor and the State Supreme Court Overturned the People’s Vote on Medical Marijuana
Executive orders! Mask Mandates! COVID Lockdowns! Will we lose our country? In a few years, will we even recognize our country? Many people are worried that the Left is on the move and that they are taking over. What can we do? It is that last question that I get asked most often and, honestly, … Continue reading 4 Characteristics That Made Milton Friedman an Effective Advocate for Liberty
My new Cato study examines state and local regulations that create barriers to startup businesses. It looks at occupational licensing, marijuana laws, alcohol licensing, minimum wages, rules on home‐based businesses, and much else. It ranks the 50 states based on an index of 17 variables. The table shows the overall results. The state ranking should be considered … Continue reading Best and Worst States for Entrepreneurs
The World Bank recently released its latest “Women, Business and the Law” annual report that gathers some 50 years of data evaluating dozens of legal indicators regarding women’s rights in 190 countries. For each country, it answers questions such as “Can a woman choose where to live in the same way as a man?” and “Can a woman register a business in … Continue reading Women’s Rights Are Improving Worldwide
Born in Vienna on this date (May 8) in 1899, Austrian economist and political philosopher Friedrich August von Hayek lived to see almost the entirety of the 20th Century. He won a Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974 and died in 1992 at the age of 92. The 20th was perhaps the most collectivist century … Continue reading F.A. Hayek on ‘the Supreme Rule’ That Separates Collectivism From Individualism
A federal judge on Monday upheld $30,000 in fines against a Florida retiree who failed to cut his grass while attending to a dying relative out of state. As Carey Wedler reported for FEE in 2019, the defendant, Jim Ficken, was fined $500 a day over code violations on his Dunedin home. Ficken’s first “violation” … Continue reading Federal Court Rules Against Florida Man Fined $30k Over Tall Grass
A great benefit of immigration is that it allows people to escape all kinds of tyranny. As George Mason University’s Ilya Somin has written in his excellent Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom, “Empowering more people to vote with their feet can save millions from lives of poverty and oppression, and expand opportunities … Continue reading 187 Million Immigrants Have Moved to Freer Countries
Editor’s Note: This article was written for the Instytut Misesa in Poland and published in Polish on May 7, 2021. Below is the English version. (The Polish version is here). The Law and Justice Party of the Polish government is borrowing an old name from American history as a label for a new program of … Continue reading Repeating the New Deal’s Old Mistakes
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