Maybe it's just my myopia or narcissism, but I have trouble believing most people would not be libertarians if they knew what freedom was all about. To date, every single one of my friends' and others' objections to individual rights and personal liberty that I can remember was based on many grave misconceptions about libertarianism. I don't proselytize to my friends because, among other reasons, it makes us both uncomfortable, so I'll proselytize here. That seems to be half the point of this stupid web page, anyway...
So I have compiled many links to columns and articles that elucidate the glories of liberty much better than I could in writing, much less in conversation. It's a very incomplete list, as I have forgotten or lost a lot of the articles I have read. But it'll do for now.
Christian morality and libertarian reality by James Wilson
He tells us how we should deal with criminals and our enemies: love them.
Christianity's free-market tradition by Stephen W. Carson
The Christian Scholastics of the 13th through the 17th centuries recognized the supremacy of private property rights as the foundation of a free and peaceful society. Truly inspiring and uplifting.
Profits vs. society: must we choose? by Stephen W. Carson
The sequel to the previous column.
The history of freedom in Christianity by Lord Acton
A very famous speech he delivered in 1877.
Davy Crockett, charity, and Congress
He discovered what Christian charity truly is and is not.
Taking stock: Christianity and the state by Ryan McMaken
The great libertarian activist and writer Frank Chodorov once wrote that while he could see how a libertarian might not be a Christian, he did not see how a Christian could not be a libertarian.
Jesus is an anarchist by James Redmond
This is pretty long, so didn't get through all of it, but it seemed excellent. Lots of Bible citations.
Christianity: mother of political liberty by Andrew Sandlin
A brief history of Christianity's triumphs over political tyranny. The last sentence is, "Christianity is not merely a matrix in which political freedom flourishes; it is the only foundation on which to build a free society," which is patently false, but he makes his points well.
Modern-day Molochs by Bob Wallace
Bob Wallace is perhaps the strongest specific reason I have gained such a favorable view of Christianity in the last year (a non-specific reason being these various writers on the whole, as I stated above). The reason for this is he writes about the wisdom and moral lessons taught by the Bible, not how God commanded this and God commanded that, or how we should praise the glorious Lord for no apparent reason. The Bible is about how humans should act, not about how the universe is run, and I've learned this from Wallace, a Christian.
Why the Christian right is wrong by Michael Peirce
They use the state for their own ends.
Lew Rockwell's anti-environmentalist manifesto
Against socialism, Gaia-worship, hysteria, lies, distortion, and people who don't so much love animals as dislike humans.
Save the universe! by Butler Shaffer
The environmentalists seem to have a coercive state program for solving every human problem. There are much bigger problems with the entire universe itself—maybe they can come up with some ways to solve those.
The attack on SUVs by Lew Rockwell
American eco-terrorists declare war by Michelle Malkin
They use violence, threats, vandalism, and terrorism to push their agenda. That doesn't automatically make their position wrong, but I wouldn't want to be on their side.
The roots of the housing shortage by Gene Callahan
Ha! Get it? He's talking about environmental laws causing housing shortages, and he said "roots"!
ANWR and private property by William L. Anderson
The socialist calculation problem applies to the ANWR oil-drilling debate.
Value and the environment by Jacob Halbrooks
The values of things can only be determined by human wants and opinions; they don't have intrinsic value on their own, at least not in a economic sense, and this is the only sense that matters when telling people what they can and can't do with their money and property, when making things legal and illegal.
Free markets would be OPEC's undoing by George Reisman
Ohhh, man, George Reisman is so awesome. He says the United States' environmental laws keep us dependent on Middle Eastern oil, which funds all their terrorism. If we wanted oil that was cheaper than OPEC's, all we would have to do is abolish our environmental restrictions on energy production.
What evangelical environmentalists do not know about economics by Timothy Terrell
Private property rights, and not socialist calculation, are the answer to environmental damage.
Global warming: nature or nurture? by Kevin Van Cott
Maybe global warming is caused by increased solar heat, not manmade pollutants.
Middle Ages were warmer than it is today
A team at Harvard University compiled a review of some studies that used various temperature indices to estimate the world's temperatures during the last 1000 years, and "The findings prove that the world had a medieval warm period between the ninth and 14th centuries, with world temperatures significantly higher than today's." And separate studies also reported that SUV use was significantly lower in the Middle Ages than it is now! Incredible!
Thomas Sowell on environmental politics hurting the poor:
A San Francisco liberal
Diversity for thee, not me
'Open space' = Housing ban
Priceless politics
Property rites
The high cost of busybodies
Health care in prison by William L. Anderson
He is one of my very favorite writers, and this is without question one of his best columns. It is both caustic and entertaining.
Socialized medicine: the fix is in by Neal Boortz
He lays out a step-by-step prediction of what will result from the Republicans' ill-conceived prescription drug benefit for old people. It is both intriguing and horrifying to read this and realize that is almost exactly what is going to happen.
The insurance scam by Michael Levin
He explains in wonderfully clear and extensive detail the nature of insurance (risk-pooling), the purpose of an insurance policy, the function of having different prices for different people, and the fallacies of government prohibition of certain insurance company practices.
Sayonara, MSAs by Dale Steinreich
Another in-depth explanation of real health insurance (catastrophe insurance), what made it all but vanish in the United States, and how the government made health insurance, in its current form, more expensive.
Real medical freedom by Dale Steinreich
He totally rebukes and embarrasses the critics of his previous column.
Subsidizing sickness: medicine and the State by Lew Rockwell
Socialism, especially in the medical-care industry, has a long, sad history of failure and oppression.
Four-step health-care solution by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Unfortunately brief and not very in-depth due to space constraints, this article lays out four simple steps the federal government would have to take in order to "fix" the health care problems that it caused, and it succinctly and simply explains the problems with the government-regulated health insurance industry and how they'd be solved by the free market. (I've always had a little bit of trouble understanding the nuances of health insurance and the problems with it, but not anymore.)
What is interventionism? by George Reisman
Only a part of this is about health care, but it is a good and instructive part.
HillaryCare, Republican style by Ron Paul
Their heinous prescription-drug bill.
Your worst nightmare—libertarian health care? by Richard Johnson
(Just to show that I can allow counter-arguments from time to time): Hmmm, maybe libertarianism isn't such a perfect system after all...
Health care for all! by Christopher Mayer
He explains why all the promises and demands of our elected criminal class are not only immoral but impossible.
Canadian health care by Andrei Kreptul
This is the hell that the leftists in the Republican and Democratic parties want for the United States. Equal mediocrity, equal misery—but equality above all else!
Socialized medicine, take two by Jeffrey Herbener
The Republicans have ruined the medical care industry about as much as the Clintons wanted to in the 1990's. Very revealing about their true politics.
"Bad medicine" or bad economics? by William L. Anderson
He berates that dolt Paul Krugman, the most incompetent famous economist on the planet, and explains why Krugman's assertions about the costs of medical care are all wrong.
Intended consequences by William L. Anderson
On the Patients' Bill of Rights.
Socialized medicine in the U.S. is inevitable! by Neal Boortz
The column whence that previous quotation came.
Politics and pathogens by James Ostrowski
On how government helps make us more unhealthy.
Regimentation by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
Always an instructive and entertaining author, much like William L. Anderson, he compares Clinton and Gore's health care nationalization plans and Microsoft break-up efforts to the fascist socialism of totalitarian dictatorships of the 20th century.
Gore endorses Canada's medical system by William L. Anderson
He details the arguments in favor of socialized medicine and rebukes all of them.
Chapters from Making Economic Sense by Murray N. Rothbard:
These are chapters from his 1995 book that have to do with health care, published on the Mises.org website. He explains in his very thorough, academic, incisive style the problems with government intervention into health care. The second one might be the best column to read first out of all of these because it explains in very straightforward layman's terms what insurance is, what it's for, how we pay for it, and how these aspects have become warped in the field of medical insurance, as opposed to car or fire insurance.
Roots of the Insurance Crisis
Government Medical "Insurance"
The Health Plan's Devilish Principles
Socialized Medicine in America by Timothy D. Terrell
It's here!...
Medicare madness by Alan Reynolds
Why do so many seniors decide not to buy their own insurance for prescription drugs? They buy their own home insurance, car insurance and life insurance. Yet many pass when it comes to drug insurance. Why is that? Perhaps it is because it is illegal for seniors to buy any separate policy for drug insurance.
The trouble with Medicare by Hans F. Senholz
It is overwrought with bureaucratic regulations and political corruption.
One hundred years of medical robbery by Dale Steinreich
The AMA and its government-created, government-enforced monopoly artificially lowers the supply of medical service, thereby increasing doctor salaries, which is the one real aim of the AMA.
The medical mess by William L. Anderson
Disregard for the laws of economics by politicians and bureaucrats has led to whatever "crisis" there may be in the health-care industry.
The politics of American health care by Charles L. Armstrong
He is a physician who tells about government intervention in medicine from his own perspective. It's an excellent read.
Thomas Sowell on "free-lunch medicine":
Gee, price controls cause shortages?
The true economics of the medical industry
Pharmaceutical companies: the sacrificial scapegoats of political demagoguery
Thomas Sowell on "universal health care":
Obscene profits?
Government controls cost more
Universal insurance coverage helps no one
The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State by Bruce Benson
This is a link to a book about the history of law, justice, and governments in places like England and early America, and it shows how workable, just systems of law and defense evolved without forcible governments systematizing the violation of people's rights.
To Serve and Protect by Bruce Benson
This is another book about similar topics, going into more detail about how law and justice could easily exist fairly and non-chaotically, and how the free market has and would provide better defense to people at lower prices.
Police, law, and the courts in a libertarian world by Murray Rothbard, from A New Liberty
A brilliant and beautiful essay that describes how the free market can stand up to the toughest tests the world can throw at it. Read especially the part in the middle about Celtic Ireland's libertarian society. (Just click on Edit | Find, "Ireland".)
Territorial vs. non-territorial governance by Richard C.B. Johnsson
He explains how people could and did live with non-monopolistic governing systems (i.e., people have a choice of what systems of property-protection and courts to belong to; it isn't forced on them by the one government that rules wherever they live). At first thought it does sound like it'd be kind of chaotic, but it'd be a hell of a lot better than the various forms of monopolistic government we have today. And, of course, it's the only just system.
Customary Law with Private Means of Resolving Disputes and Dispensing Justice by Bruce Benson
A .pdf file of a famous classic essay by the king of private-enterprise law.
Why abolishing government would not bring chaos by Brad Edmonds
Far from a definitive proof of anything, Brad Edmonds's short summaries of the advantages of getting rid of coercive governments are instructive and insightful. This one summarizes how police protection and other things could be paid for in a libertarian society the way everything else is paid for: fairly easily, by almost everyone, if the government stayed out of it.
Order without law: Where will the anarchists keep the madmen? by John D. Sneed
He outlines how private defense agencies operating under non-coercive governance would operate and co-operate just fine in a libertarian society.
Free-market justice is in the cards by J.H. Huebert
He outlines the supremacy of the free market's fraud prevention and retaliation system—credit card companies and their avenues of fraud complaints and investigation—to the government's inefficient, expensive, unreliable, and often unjust court system.
There are no gun-free, safe zones by John Lott
Check out all of the columns in John Lott's archive. They all concern follies related to firearms and how guns are usually used for good, not evil.
The Merced pitchfork murders by Richard Poe
This one is really moving, really impactful. I highly recommend it.
Media bias againts guns by Vin Suprynowicz
Yeah, yeah, you're saying: We've all heard so much about "media bias" this, "media bias" that—I'm sick of it! They aren't biased against guns! Yeah, they are. Vin Suprynowicz is usually pretty entertaining, and he doesn't fail here.
An appalling idiocy: part II by Thomas Sowell
An appalling idiocy: part III by Thomas Sowell
'Friends' of blacks by Thomas Sowell
Not Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or the like.
Half a century after Brown by Thomas Sowell
Three cheers for the Cos by Walter E. Williams
Bill Cosby speaks his mind and speaks the truth.
Three cheers for the Cos, part II by Walter E. Williams
Compare Bill Cosby's frank admonitions to Julian Bond's excuses and blame-placing, and decide whose ideas would help poor blacks improve their situation better.
Inside the beast by Kyle B. Housely
A very intelligent and well-written column by a 17-year-old high-schooler on collectivism in government schools.
'D' doesn't stand for 'disrespect' by Linda Schrock Taylor
One of her many columns about what government "educators" do wrong and what she and her colleagues do right.
Keep their toes to the fire by Linda Schrock Taylor
Tell you what: just read her entire archives. It might make you a little sick to the stomach, but maybe that'll make you realize what a dismal failure government schooling is.
Poor education prognosis by Walter Williams
The new book No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning by Drs. Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom analyzes the failure of American schools to properly educate black children.
John Taylor Gatto's home page
John Taylor Gatto has written several groundbreaking books about government schools and homeschooling.
Crooked house, crumbling foundation by Linda Schrock Taylor
The coming crash of the public education system.
The Worm in the Apple by Peter Brimelow
This is a great review of his book reprinted on VDARE.com, a site that syndicates his columns. I know Thomas Sowell or someone else good has written about it, but I haven't found it yet...
Lessons by the yard by Linda Schrock Taylor
Centralized, amalgamized, bureaucratized schooling is not nearly as good as the more individualized, disciplined community school she attended during her first half of elementary school.
A cost/benefit analysis of the human spirit: the Luddites revisited by Butler Shaffer
Oh, man. It's hard to even know what to say about this. It's long, so it's hard to summarize. It's just uplifting and thought-provoking, how 'bout that?
Ten Ethical Objections to the Market Economy by Murray N. Rothbard
This article was taken from chapter 6 of Power and Market, the short addition to Rothbard's magnum opus Man, Economy, and State. He was just an excellent, wonderful, clear writer and arguer.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe11.html
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1647