political

Critics of libertarians seem to worry most about our full-throated endorsement of and enthusiasm for the proven benefits of unhindered free-market competition. They believe that we are cynically defending a corrupt system of power and privilege, carrying water for capitalism’s exploiter class. There is, they argue, a need for governments, ostensibly pledged to “the greater good,” to intervene to counteract some of the perceived undesirable side effects of the free market system, which they say moves society toward inequitable accumulations of wealth in the hands of a few.

The political and financial establishments of Europe and the United States were taken by almost total surprise and sent into apparent shock when 52 percent of the voters in the United Kingdom chose for their country to leave the European Union (EU). But it is not the end of the world as we know it, and can be a positive sign and example of opposition to unrepresentative and centralized bureaucratic control over people’s lives.

Net neutrality absolutists are overreaching yet again in their push for a practical FCC ban of ISP zero rating offers under the FCC’s case-by-case “General Conduct Standard” review, by claiming violations of the “bright-line rules” in the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization.

The news is filled with the everyday zigzags of those competing against each other for the Democrat and Republican Party nominations to run for the presidency of the United States. But one of the most important issues receiving little or no attention in this circus of political power lusting is the long-term danger from the huge and rising Federal government debt.

President Barack Obama delivered his final State of the Union address on January 12, 2016, and devoted most of the time to defending his “legacy” of bigger and more intrusive government, with an emphasis on the other aspects of personal and social life he wished could come under the blanket of more political paternalism, if only there was enough time before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.

Because Arne Duncan, the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, often engages his mouth before his brain, the case for abolishing the department may have just become stronger than ever.

Wherever we turn we are confronted with politicians, political pundits, television talking heads, and editorial page commentators, all of whom offer an array of plans, programs, and projects that will solve the problems of the world – if only government is given the power and authority to remake society in the design proposed.

If advocates of freedom were to make up a list of New Year’s resolutions for 2016, one of the most important items should be ending government’s monopoly control over money. In a free society, people in the marketplace should decide what they wish to use as money, not the government.

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Rachelle Peterson, Director of Research Projects at the National Association of Scholars (NAS), joins H. Sterling Burnett, managing editor of Environment & Climate News to discuss the divest movement on college campuses.

No surprise that political activist Larry Lessig, the intellectual leader of the net neutrality and anti-copyright movements, ran one of the most cynical, undemocratic, and stunt-driven Presidential candidacies ever, because that’s exactly the kind of cynical, undemocratic, stunt-driven campaigns his political followers have run to un-democratically dictate net neutrality and to undermine copyright protection online.

Keynesians never seem to learn. Every time an economy slows down or reverses gears and “goes negative,” in terms of growth and employment, their only answer is a call for “aggregate demand” stimulus and more government spending manipulation.

A new report by the National Association of Scholars shows how popular the sustainability movement has become college and university campuses in the United States and around the world, since the movement was formally organized on college campuses in 2006. The NAS’s study argues, the movement poses a serious threat to liberal education and to political and economic liberty.

The National Review Institute, founded by William Buckley, Jr. in 1991, and The Heartland Institute joined forces for an event with Charles C. W. Cooke featuring his book, “The Conservatarian Manifesto”, on Wednesday, March 25, in the Crystal Room of the Union League Cub, 645 West Jackson, Chicago. “The Conservatarian Manifesto” is a call to arms for an underserved movement among conservatives. The crucial tenets of this movement includes fiscal responsibility, constitutional obedience, and controlled government spending.