The secrets to Leonard Read’s effectiveness—the reasons he is celebrated 35 years after his passing—lie in the magnetism of his character. He was the happiest of happy warriors.

Thirty-five years ago today—on December 27, 1983—the world witnessed a most extraordinary act of forgiveness. Maybe adopting a more forgiving spirit—thinking of forgiveness first as an option when we’re wronged instead of last—would make an excellent New Year’s resolution, if we really mean it and do it.

One of the best American presidents, Calvin Coolidge, advised the country, “Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.”

Lewis’s worldview was internally consistent. He couldn’t bring himself to look upon government as God, a substitute for God, or a reasonable facsimile of God. Government was composed of imperfect mortals, period. That means it contains all the flaws and foibles of mortals. So a free people must confine it, restrain it, and keep a wary eye on it.

To all the numerous reasons to support the philosophy of liberty, add this one: It is the most inclusive political philosophy imaginable. It starts with the foundation of each person’s unique and precious individuality. It respects human rights that are universal, owned at birth by each and every one of us. It encourages us to judge individuals not by some collectivist irrelevance or group assignment but by, as Dr. Martin Luther King put it, “the content of their character.” You can’t be a racist or a homophobe or a xenophobe or an anti-Semite or any other fill-in-the-blank, hate-them-for-the-group-God-put-them-in Neanderthal and a consistent defender of liberty.

When I take my rat terriers Clarkson and Wilber (pictured here) for an unleashed hike through the woods, their excitement and boundless energy remind me how important freedom is, even to our intelligent four-legged friends.

Faith in free people is rooted in our best understanding of basic human nature: Men and women act to improve their well-being. They do so by creating wealth and offering it to others in trade. They respond to incentives and disincentives. The great majority derive satisfaction not only from the utility provided by goods and services but from the joy that comes from the act of wealth creation. Unleash their creative energies and they put them to work! — A tribute to “I, Pencil” on its 60th anniversary.

I’m thankful for more than anybody has time to read about, but right now I am spending a lot of time appreciating the wonderful opportunity I’ve had to lead FEE for more than ten years as its president.

Perverting the truth into a partial truth or an outright lie is a sure sign of rottenness of character. It’s a common tool of the rotten, who by definition are people who seek to harm, deceive, and control for their own self-aggrandizement. Run from anyone who fears the truth or opposes the truth, for they can do you no good.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.