Free Republic

If there has been one meme that defines much of 2018 I would have to say it’s been the emergence of what I call the “Celebrity CEO.” And nowhere has this phenom been taken to 11 than what we’ve experienced from Silicon Valley. However, what takes it up another notch is just how overarching and politically driven this group decided they were to become via anointing themselves by decree, using their platforms and products as a cudgel against any and all that did not adhere to their viewpoints of right and wrong. Regardless if it would pass the standards of...

An artistic mural has been installed at the University of Southern California that declares “dismantle whiteness” in big, black and white capital letters, one part of a larger display designed to spark conversations regarding “racism, sexism and xenophobia,” according to its creators. The mural was designed by the feminist artist collective When Women Disrupt in conjunction with students in the class “Women: Designing Media for Social Change.”

When I was reading F.A. Hayek "The Road to Serfdom," I remember being astonished that Hayek reported that in Britain during the 1930's, workers were consigned to their jobs by the British government, and failure to comply would result in prison time.I no longer have book and I would like to find sources to confirm this history.I did a search for "Socialist Britain" and found no mention of this.Any help would be appreciated

Sorry, defense authorization isn’t opening the door to a liberal police state Can a mundane defense authorization law create an Obama dictatorship? Many people on the political right and left have been alarmed by language in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that they argue authorizes the president to use military force to capture, detain, torture and kill Americans at home and abroad. The furor centers on Sections 1021 and 1022 of the law, which deal with detaining terrorist suspects. Specifically at issue is to what extent the law allows the government to treat American citizens like enemies of...

"The subtle change in meaning to which the word 'freedom' was subjected in order that this argument sound plausible is important. To the great apostles of political freedom the word had meant freedom from coercion, freedom from the arbitrary power of other men, release from the ties which left the individual no choice but obedience to the orders of a superior to whom he was attached...The demand for the new freedom was [in contrast]...only a name for the old demand of an equal distribution of wealth." The Road to Serfdom, "The Great Utopia." p. 77(As quoted by Soros-funded wikipedia) I...

Private health insurance in the U.S. will be dead in three years, U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn said Tuesday. "There will be no insurance industry left in three years," Coburn told the Republican Women's Club of Tulsa County. "That is by design. You’re going to make insurance unaffordable for everyone -- which is what they want. Because if there’s no private insurance left, what’s left? Government-centered, government-run, single-payer health care.” Coburn apparently based his prediction on reported hikes in private insurance premiums, increases he attributed to the new law. Some insurers say they have raised premiums because of new mandates, including...

The Tea Party is a thoroughly modern movement, organizing on Twitter and Facebook to become the most dynamic force of the midterm elections. But when it comes to ideology, it has reached back to dusty bookshelves for long-dormant ideas. It has resurrected once-obscure texts by dead writers — in some cases elevating them to best-seller status — to form a kind of Tea Party canon. Recommended by Tea Party icons like Ron Paul and Glenn Beck, the texts are being quoted everywhere from protest signs to Republican Party platforms. Pamphlets in the Tea Party bid for a Second American Revolution,...

So a Newsweek writer admits she didn’t read past page 10 of Glenn Beck’s new novel The Overton Window, but that didn’t stop her from bloviating not just about that book, but also about another book with a Beck connection. And boy, does she screw up. Isia Jasiewicz (who Robert Stacy McCain identifies as an “intern” and a “Princeton senior”) notes (correctly) that Friedrich von Hayek’s 1944 book The Road to Serfdom recently rocketed up the Amazon.com bestseller list after Glenn Beck recommended the economics classic on his Fox News television show. Jasiewicz goes on to helpfully explain to Newsweek’s...

When Glenn Beck urged his listeners, “Please, pick it up. The Road to Serfdom. Make it part of your essential library,” sales of Austrian Economist Frederick von Hayek’s book at Amazon.com pushed it to Number 1 the next day. Prior to the election of President Obama, “The book sold respectably at a clip of about 600 copies a month,” according to Bruce Caldwell, editor at the University of Chicago Press. “But then, in November 2008, sales more than quadrupled, and they haven’t slowed down since.” When John Stossel, host of Fox Business, featured the book on his show on February...

Government is taking us a long way down the Road to Serfdom. That doesn't just mean that more of us must work for the government. It means that we are changing from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit. F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote "The Road to Serfdom" in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom. The book was a hit. Reader's Digest produced a condensed version that sold 5 million copies. Hayek meant that governments can't plan economies without planning people's lives. After all,...

To many who have watched the transition from socialism to fascism at close quarters the connection between the two systems has become increasingly obvious, but in the (Western) democracies the majority of people still believe that socialism and freedom can be combined. They do not realize that democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something utterly different - the very destruction of freedom itself. As has been aptly said: ‘What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried...

Toorpakai Saindi, who has seven children, has been granted an estimated £400 a week in child and local tax benefits, while her landlord receives £12,458 a month because there is no other suitable property available. The Saindis were placed three months ago at their current £1.2m house which they are entitled to have by law given the size of their family Mrs Saindi, who has four sons and three daughters aged eight to 22, approached Ealing Council in west London in July after being made homeless. The authority has a legal obligation to find her a seven-bedroom home. The mother,...

Andrew Sullivan, a senior editor at The Atlantic, came upon a chart at TheAgitator.com last week showing two trend lines: the ranks of private workers decreasing and the number of government beneficiaries increasing in the United States since 1950, with beneficiaries now surpassing workers. The only comment from Mr. Sullivan on his blog at TheAtlantic.com was his headline: “The Road to Serfdom.” Radley Balko, the libertarian commentator and journalist who writes TheAgitator.com, credits the chart to A. Gary Shilling’s financial newsletter Insight. It was also posted on the Web site of Reason magazine, where Mr. Balko is an editor (reason.com)....

http://www.mises.org/TRTS.htm a few days ago someone mentioned the book The Road to Serfdom but Hayek. I found this web site that has the main points, illustrated. :) Enjoy

<p>This is the 60th anniversary of the publication of "Road to Serfdom," by Friedrich Hayek. It is one of the most important books of the 20th century, as important as the publication of "Das Kapital" was, in its malign way, in the 19th.</p>

At times the thought of living in a ''virtual'' world is appealing—a realm with no consequences, no piper to pay for bad decisions, no whirlwind to reap from wind we have sown.        Unfortunately for the political leaders who have held California’s reins for the past four years, and for the rest of us as well, we do not inhabit such a world.  Decisions and policies do have consequences.  Serious consequences.        Consider the state budget.  Just a few years back, state tax coffers were overflowing with unexpected capital gains tax revenue from the booming stock market.  Prudence—knowing that stock markets rise...