The Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic of 1793 was one of the new country’s earliest and best examples of the cascade of private charity that defined the nation for the next two centuries.

Henry David Thoreau asked, “Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then?”

Whatever your faith may be (or even if you presently possess none), don’t make claims about Jesus and money that can’t be supported by his words and historical context. He never turned up his nose at the concept of a medium of exchange, or honestly earning it in productive commerce.

Another version of this lecture appears in the “Talks” section, but this one included some great questions from members of Students for LIberty-UK — May 15, 2020. You can get my book, “Was Jesus a Sociallst?” at the FEE.org store, or from the web sites of Barnes & Noble, ISI Books, or Amazon.

Capitalism, even when adulterated with endless restrictions, taxes, political cronyism and the like, is a hair-trigger away from mindless, sweeping condemnation. The benevolent state, in spite of its monotonous and often deadly failures, gets a pass.

Even before any of his own businesses flopped, Milton had a front-row seat to his father Henry’s seemingly endless entrepreneurial misfires. Persistence, a very admirable trait, made the humble and generous Milton Hershey a rich and famous man.

To the Bill of Rights, Madison never suggested adding such language as “weather permitting” or “if it’s convenient” or “pending executive approval” or “unless otherwise over-ridden for a variety of special purposes and good intentions.” 

When I think of the many ways that government deceives us into its embrace, one in particular really stands out: It seeks to convince us how helpless we would be without it. It tells us we can’t do this, we can’t do that, that government possesses magical powers beyond those of mere mortals and that yes, we’d be dumb as dirt and as destitute as drifters if we didn’t put it in charge of one thing or another.

This was a rebellion of the citizens of towns against the encroachments of national authority. The models the rebels looked to were “free cities” to the east, such as Ragusa and Genoa. 

The “Hoover did nothing and FDR saved us” fairy tale is the myth that refuses to die.

She came up with a better idea. She possessed the courage to invest in it. She earned the willing patronage of millions of happy customers. She employed thousands of people. She hurt no one in the process; indeed, she left the world in a small way better than when she found it.

As we all look forward to the end of the novel coronavirus pandemic, let’s be thankful that we live in the 21st Century, not the 14th.

I will judge the leadership and character of those in power by how quickly they get off our backs, out of our pockets, and out of our way when the crisis has passed. I will judge most harshly those who use the situation to enshrine the state as our master.

Willford I. King was an economist and statistician who didn’t have to numb you with numbers to get his point across. 

We should be naturally suspicious of any ideology that requires a deadly, worldwide pandemic to make its case superficially viable, if only for the short-term. 

As our 30th president, he was one of our best—the last one to leave the federal government smaller than when he found it.

Could you really trust someone who does evil in the name of doing good? Not me, not for a second. There’s a fundamental contradiction in that formula and it never ends well. It invariably reveals a fatal character flaw, made all the more sinister by the deception and concealment.

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's ideas are especially important today, when envy and jealousy seem to permeate much of our politics.

Though his interests stretch from mining to education in his native Australia, Ron Manners is known throughout the world’s vibrant liberty movement. 

“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.”