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Lawrence W. Reed

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How Socialism Works →

November 16, 2018

OK, here's how this works: Socialists buy votes with promises of free stuff. Gullible people who can't think further than next week, don't care about the math, or can't muster the personal character to avoid being accomplices to theft, support it. They're egged on by envy and vilification of the productive. Socialists then concentrate power and money in the hands of the State. When the economy crumbles, socialists then use the crisis they created as an excuse to control virtually every aspect of life. And now, in the latter stages of this in Venezuela, the State issues a compulsory "fatherland card." Big Brother has arrived. Meantime, socialists in Hollywood, Congress and American academia say nothing. You won't find them demonstrating in front of the Venezuelan embassy. Socialism's millions of victims in Venezuela will get no voice or sympathy from these state-worshipers. What an attractive philosophy this socialism is! NOT.

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The Declaration and the Constitution: The Background →

November 9, 2018

In the long struggle of men and women against tyranny, what America’s Founding generation accomplished stands without comparable precedent.

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Did Liberty Win? Here's How To Tell →

November 7, 2018

It’s a sad commentary that politics consumes so much of our lives these days, but it’s the natural and inevitable outcome of having granted politics such a commanding role in the first place.

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No Thanksgiving Without Profit →

November 3, 2018

“Profit is responsible for more good things—by a long shot—than all the charity in the world.”

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Heroes of Wealth Creation: A Lecture at the Heritage Foundation 10/29/18 →

November 1, 2018

John D. Rockefeller, Vivien Kellems, Ludwig Erhard, Andrew Mellon, Elijah McCoy, and others. Lecture: 40 minutes + 10 minutes Q & A.

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Wisdom from Sallust, Tacitus and Livy →

October 22, 2018

As Will Durant told us, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.”

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Remembering Solzhenitsyn →

October 19, 2018

Bad people are everywhere, but nothing brings them forth and licenses them to do evil more thoroughly than concentrated power and the subordination of morality to the service of a statist ideology.

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Was Jesus a Socialist? discussion on Acton Institute podcast →

October 18, 2018

Was Jesus a Socialist? The answer in this podcast, based on my essay of the same title (https://bit.ly/2b6guEd), is an emphatic, unambiguous, categorical, absolute, unqualified, unadulterated and resounding NO! And no ifs, ands or buts either.

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Leonard Read's "Anything That's Peaceful" →

October 16, 2018

At the center of this book of Leonard Read’s (one of nearly 30) was this simple but profound proposition: Allow people to live their lives free of the initiation of violence

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The Wisdom of Barry Goldwater →

October 10, 2018

When I came home from government school one day and told him that all my teachers said Lyndon Johnson was the man to vote for, my dad instilled in me a healthy skepticism of classroom authority that’s only grown in the decades since.

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Paul Johnson: One Superb Historian! →

October 9, 2018

From his countless books documenting centuries of history to his masterful ability to challenge the pseudo-intellectual left, Paul Johnson is worthy of high praise and celebration.

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Introduction to Leonard E. Read's 1964 book, "Anything Peaceful" →

September 5, 2018

Read this book with an open mind and there’s a good chance it will change both your life and the way you see the world. That, as Leonard Read and his life’s work so steadfastly held, is in the end the most effective way to change the world itself, and all for the better.

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Photography and Entrepreneurship: An Interview with Alfonso Maestro →

August 29, 2018

Alfonso Maestro and his twin brother Gonzalo are entrepreneurs of a very interesting sort.

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On Witold Pilecki for "Our American Stories" radio program →

August 19, 2018

In this podcast, FEE President Lawrence Reed discusses the only know person to be imprisoned voluntarily in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

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Running for Liberty in Brazil →

August 16, 2018

Lawrence Reed talks with Kim Kataguiri, Marcel van Hattem, and Priscila Chammas—candidates for National Congress.

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The Stirring Elocution of Frederick Douglass →

August 9, 2018

It’s worth our time to reflect on the life and words of this great man born 200 years ago this year.

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The Man Who Bankrupted a Legislature

August 8, 2018

To curry favor with Nevada legislators, he offered them confidential and convincing financial advice.

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Caligula: Plumbing the Depths of Ancient Tyranny →

August 7, 2018

The history of Rome is a case study in just how much power can corrupt a person, and Caligula is likely the case in point.

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It's More Important to BE American than to BUY American →

August 6, 2018

It makes no more sense to inflict “Buy American” protectionism on yourself than it does to endorse it when it’s imposed on you by law.

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Happy Birthday Joseph Paxton, Much More Than a Gardener! →

August 3, 2018

A memorable British entrepreneur, architect and more.

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