Reason Foundation

Recent Research and Commentary

My Body, Their Choice

Turning health care over to the government inevitably limits individual freedom.

November 18, 2009

Peter Suderman

"My body, my choice" has long been a rallying cry for abortion-rights advocates on the left, many of whom have recently been vocal supporters of the Democratic health care reform agenda. But as abortion advocates are now discovering, abortion rights aren't as easily compatible with health care reform as they might have once thought. Turns out the more government gets involved in health care, the more difficult it becomes to truly retain choices about one's body.

Freedom to Confuse

Thanks to the abortion amendment, liberals suddenly care about "choice" in our health care system.

November 11, 2009

David Harsanyi

If liberals are so disturbed by Congress' dictating whether abortion is a legitimate health care issue or not, it only makes sense that they should be equally troubled by government management of other health care decisions.

Undoubtedly, this is zealously naive thinking on my part. Reaching such a conclusion demands a modicum of consistency. And as we've seen, health care "reform" is an ideological crusade immune from logic.

Ayn Rand on the Economic Crisis

November 9, 2009, 12:51pm

Adam Summers

Ayn Rand: "Regardless of the purpose for which one intends to use it, wealth must first be produced. . . . Whether the wealth extorted by taxation is drained for the unearned benefit of Louis XIV or for the unearned benefit of the 'underprivileged' makes no difference to the economic productivity of a nation. Whether one is chained for a 'noble' purpose or an ignoble one, for the benefit of the poor or the rich, for the sake of somebody's 'need' or somebody's 'greed'—when one is chained, one cannot produce. There is no difference in the ultimate fate of all chained economies, regardless of any alleged justifications for the chains."

Gun-Control Laws Fail to Prevent Gun Crimes in England; Ayn Rand on Self-Defense

November 5, 2009, 7:17pm

Adam Summers

Ayn Rand: "The necessary consequence of man's right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative."

Re-Examining Rand

November 4, 2009, 3:16pm

Shikha Dalmia

In Honor of Ayn Rand: Alan Greenspan on the Gold Standard and Economic Freedom (1966)

November 2, 2009, 2:12pm

Adam Summers

Alan Greenspan (1966): "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. . . . Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."

More »