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Lawrence W. Reed

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The Courage and Inspiration of the Scots

July 28, 2025

It should be no surprise that nearly 40 percent of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 were of Scottish blood. (Photo: The National William Wallace Monument in Stirling, Scotland.)

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Tidbits on Taft

July 24, 2025

A lackluster one-termer, it’s hard to claim he made much of a lasting difference, but here’s some trivia anyway.

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Obituary for a Late and Unlamented Tax

July 24, 2025

Let’s celebrate July 24 as the day that Parliament gave back to the people the light and air it should never have taken in the first place. I believe God wants it that way.

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Silver Bullion TV's Patrick Vierra Interviews Me on an Ancient Chinese Tyrant →

July 22, 2025

That’s a live raccoon on my shoulder in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2017. It has nothing to do with the subject of this interview. but hopefully it will get you to watch it—the interview, that is.

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A Tribute to Ed Feulner, Movement Builder →

July 21, 2025

Ed Feulner will always be a giant in the liberty movement he devoted himself to building. For that, every liberty-loving individual on the planet should be grateful—now and for all time.

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Milei's Argentine Miracle

July 20, 2025

The state is the God of the socialist religion, so whether socialists are evil or stupid is always a flip of a coin. Javier Milei is undoing their damage in Argentina.

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No Pardon for Auto Pen

July 17, 2025

What if a President were to announce one day, “I hereby pardon everybody in America for every offense they committed and for every offense they might yet commit.” Would anyone in his right mind believe that this would be in keeping with either the spirit or the letter of the Constitution? Hey, whose hand is that on the autopen? (Photo credit: NewsMobile.in.)

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A Hero of Australian Aviation

July 15, 2025

You’ve got to love the spirit John Robertson Duigan shared with Wilbur and Orville Wright—fly first, then get government approval. Photo credit: Duigan’s 1910 biplane, from Reddit.

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Mike Mansfield and the Japanese →

July 15, 2025

The internment of almost 120,000 Japanese Americans in the wake of Pearl Harbor remains one of the blackest marks against the Roosevelt administration. Montana Senator Mike Mansfield opposed it.

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The Ultmate Central Planning Nightmare: How Many Kids You Can Have

July 13, 2025

Left-leaning idiots in the West embraced China’s one-child policy as a bright idea. Photo credit: Lawrence W. Reed, Beijing, 2004. This article also appears at The Stream: https://stream.org/the-ultimate-big-government-dictating-how-many-children-you-have/.

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How James Swan Helped America

July 8, 2025

Financier, entrepreneur, patriot, and legislator, James Swan spent a quarter of his life in custody over a minor dispute. (Photo credit: portrait of Swan by Gilbert Stuart in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.)

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America: The Roman Connection →

July 4, 2025

America’s Founders understood that, as Tacitus put it, “Lust of absolute power is more burning than all the passions.” They knew that free societies are rare in human history — in part because, as Sallust lamented, “Only a few prefer liberty; the majority seek nothing more than fair masters.”

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The 4th of July

July 3, 2025

Nothing that ever happened on the 4th of July eclipses America’s founding in either importance or impact.

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A Tyranny to Remember →

June 26, 2025

If you’re curious what an absolute dictatorship looks like—one of the very worst in all history—this is a story you’ll want to read. The power-driven wickedness of Wang Mang.

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The Quackery of Equality

June 24, 2025

The fact that free people are not equal economically is actually a cause for rejoicing. Economic inequality, when it stems from the freedom of creative individuals and not from political power, testifies to the fact that people are being themselves, each putting his uniqueness to work in ways that are fulfilling to himself and of value to others.

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In the Fight Against Liberalism, Remember J. Gresham Machen →

June 22, 2025

"When he hit a brick wall, he didn’t retreat to his sitting room; instead, he created opposing and influential institutions. He saw liberty as God’s intention for humanity and would not abide the presumptuous claims of earthly governments to diminish it for our own good. This was a man confidently, persuasively, and fearlessly principled" -- John Hendrickson and Lawrence Reed at Iowans for Tax Relief. For more on Machen, see also “God’s Forgotten Libertarian” at https://tinyurl.com/525hjj6c

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The 20th President →

June 17, 2025

James A. Garfield was a good man who likely would have gone down in history as a great president had he lived. Garfield County, Montana, can be very proud of its name.

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Leonard Read's classic now in the Telugu Language!

June 11, 2025

Photo: With Raghavendar (Ravi) Askani in Atlanta on June 10, 2025, celebrating the translation of “I, Pencil” into Telugu. An estimated 96 million people, mostly in central and southeastern India, speak the language. Leonard Read would be very proud. Ravi is co-founder with Venkatesh Geriti of the Swatantrata Center, publisher of this edition.

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The Chinese FDR

June 6, 2025

FDR’s New Deal of the 1930s was not a carbon copy of Wang Anshi’s New Policies of the 1070s, of course, but they share an activist, centralizing tendency noted by FDR's own Vice President and Agriculture Secretary. Pictured: sketch of Song Dynasty hydraulic grain mill (Wikimedia). Spanish version here: https://informeorwell.com/opinion/las-similitudes-del-new-deal-de-roosevelt-en-1933-y-el-fracasado-programa-economico-chino-de-la-dinastia-song/

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The Origins of Vandalism

June 2, 2025

What the barbarians did to Rome, hoodlums on a smaller scale did to Minneapolis, New York, Portland, and Chicago in 2020, but for this significant difference: The ones who assaulted Rome were foreigners.

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Older Posts →

Recent “Best of Web”

Featured
New York May Get Government-Owned Grocery Stores
Jul 8, 2025
New York May Get Government-Owned Grocery Stores
Jul 8, 2025

“Mamdani’s plan to carve a substantial portion out of NYC’s food market for ‘public’ grocers, with no way of gauging their effectiveness, is a foolhardy attempt to coax voters into supporting socialism, rather than a realistic effort to help New Yorkers,” writes Connor Vasile.

Jul 8, 2025
Thanks To Public School Funding Cuts, This Five-Year-Old Student Doesn't Know All The Variant Sexual Lusts Adults Can Have
May 20, 2025
Thanks To Public School Funding Cuts, This Five-Year-Old Student Doesn't Know All The Variant Sexual Lusts Adults Can Have
May 20, 2025

Young Logan Traylor was nearing the end of his kindergarten experience and, despite the public education system's best efforts, was discovered to have absolutely no knowledge about the shocking fetishes and perverted interests grown-ups engage in — Babylon Bee.

May 20, 2025
Newsom Distances Himself from Newsom
May 15, 2025
Newsom Distances Himself from Newsom
May 15, 2025

Look up “political scumbag” in the dictionary and you’ll see Newsom’s picture.

May 15, 2025

Recent Quotes

Featured
Murphy on America
Feb 11, 2025
Murphy on America
Feb 11, 2025

“The true meaning of America, you ask? It’s in a Texas rodeo, in a policeman’s badge, in the sound of laughing children, in a political rally, in a newspaper. ... In all these things, and many more, you’ll find America. In all these things, you’ll find freedom. And freedom is what America means to the world. And to me” — Actor, poet, and the most decorated American of World War II, Audie Murphy.

Feb 11, 2025
Mill on Freedom
Feb 1, 2025
Mill on Freedom
Feb 1, 2025

“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.”

Feb 1, 2025
Best-Selling Japanese Novelist Eiji Yoshikawa on Do-Gooders
Mar 20, 2023
Best-Selling Japanese Novelist Eiji Yoshikawa on Do-Gooders
Mar 20, 2023

“There’s nothing more frightening than a half-baked do-gooder who knows nothing of the world but takes it upon himself to tell the world what’s good for it — from his book, Musashi.

Mar 20, 2023

Recent Blogs

Featured
The Courage and Inspiration of the Scots
Jul 28, 2025
The Courage and Inspiration of the Scots
Jul 28, 2025

It should be no surprise that nearly 40 percent of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 were of Scottish blood. (Photo: The National William Wallace Monument in Stirling, Scotland.)

Jul 28, 2025
Tidbits on Taft
Jul 24, 2025
Tidbits on Taft
Jul 24, 2025

A lackluster one-termer, it’s hard to claim he made much of a lasting difference, but here’s some trivia anyway.

Jul 24, 2025
Obituary for a Late and Unlamented Tax
Jul 24, 2025
Obituary for a Late and Unlamented Tax
Jul 24, 2025

Let’s celebrate July 24 as the day that Parliament gave back to the people the light and air it should never have taken in the first place. I believe God wants it that way.

Jul 24, 2025