Free Republic

If hearts don't change then nothing changes. Many in Washington D.C. tend to think foolishly that they are the seat of power in this country and therefore their on will and/or legislation acts will exact change. They can be no more wrong. The political process ultimately is not the answer to racial strife and division in this country. In fact, it's politics that often exasperates and encourages division because it's much easier to divide and conquer different groups and win them to ones side in politics than seeking harmony. Everybody has agendas, from Dems to Republicans to the media to...

There is no question that liberals do an impressive job of expressing concern for blacks. But do the intentions expressed in their words match the actual consequences of their deeds? San Francisco is a classic example of a city unexcelled in its liberalism. But the black population of San Francisco today is less than half of what it was back in 1970, even though the city's total population has grown. Severe restrictions on building housing in San Francisco have driven rents and home prices so high that blacks and other people with low or moderate incomes have been driven out...

In Europe, especially in Germany, hoisting a swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime. For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers, who were responsible for the deaths of more than 20 million people. Here's my question: Why are the horrors of Nazism so well-known and widely condemned but not those of socialism and communism? What goes untaught — and possibly is covered up — is that socialist and communist ideas have produced the greatest evil in mankind's history. You say, "Williams, what in the world are you talking about? Socialists, communists and...

After his 1851 coup d’état, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the real Napoleon, pronounced himself Napoleon III. It was the rise to power of this great-man-wannabe that prompted the famous opening of Karl Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis-Bonaparte: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” The decade of the 1960s—the first appearance in full flower of modern American liberalism—was in many respects a tragedy. It was certainly a tragedy for American liberalism, which liberated itself from its previous (at...

This article appeared in the May 19, 1989, issue of National Review. Margaret Thatcher [also] wrote a piece on Ronald Reagan that appeared in the December 30, 1988, issue of National Review. Some years ago, while I was still Governor of California, I was invited to address a large meeting of business leaders in London. Upon arrival I met another American and longtime friend, the late Justin Dart. The British Conservative Party had just elected Margaret Thatcher Leader of the Party. She was the first woman to hold that position and, if the Conservative Party won an election, she would automatically...

This is Mises's 1927 review of J. M. Keynes, The End of Laissez-Faire, Ideas on the Unification of Private and Social Economy (Munich and Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1926), 40 pages, translated for the first time here (by Joseph Stromberg). It originally appeared as Mises, "Das Ende des Laissez-Faire, Ideen zur Verbindung von Privat- und Gemeinwirtschaft". Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft. 82(1927) 190-91. A review of a lecture given by John M. Keynes in Berlin. This text reproduces an address given by the English economist John Maynard Keynes on June 23, 1926, at the University of Berlin. It makes a...