Raoul Wallenberg, born on August 4th, 1912 in Sweden, a hero who saved thousand of Jews in WWII, has been nearly forgotten but you can remember him this day with a good film that he himself liked. When Hitler began rounding up the Jews in Hungary in 1944, Wallenberg faced down the Nazi death machine with nothing more than courage and paper, partly by mass manufacturing fake … [Read more...]
July 4th, Independence Day: Eight Short Films
July 4th, Independence Day, is America's annual celebration commemorating its Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Cato Institute has a nice summary of what is in the Declaration and why it is such a landmark in the foundation of human liberty: 1) We are all created equal -- no one ought to have any special rights and privileges in his social relations with other … [Read more...]
American Revolution Films For Your July 4th
Time to get ready for your July 4th celebrations. And what better way to remember what it's all about than with a good film? Here are a few American Revolution films I recommend. Note: You may want to consider buying DVDs. Since just last year, two of the six films listed below are now out of print and only available used and in limited quantity -- expect these stories of … [Read more...]
George Orwell: Happy Angel Birthday!
George Orwell (the pen name for Eric Arthur Blair) was born on June 25th, 1903. Few in history did more to warn the public about the dangers of totalitarianism. Several films based on Orwell's works are available, including three versions of 1984, and two of Animal Farm (1,2). The definitive film version of 1984 is the one released that very year, starring John Hurt. … [Read more...]
Justice Clarence Thomas: Happy Birthday!
US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was born on June 23rd, 1948. He is a fan of Ayn Rand and has decided libertarian leanings. No wonder the left did everything it could to try to keep him off the Supreme Court. As he himself put it: “‘I felt as though in my life I had been looking at the wrong people as the people who would be problematic toward me. We were told that, … [Read more...]
Edward Snowden, Hero: Happy Birthday!
Edward Snowden was born on June 21st, 1983. At age 30, in 2013, he became an American hero. While employed at the NSA, Snowden discovered the agency was routinely and secretly scanning every email, listening to every phone call, tracking every phone, etc., of every person in the United States. Each and every instance of this policy constituted a violation of the Fourth … [Read more...]
James Stewart: Libertarian Film Hero
James Stewart -- born May 20, 1908 -- made many films over his long acting career. Included among these are seven films of interest to libertarians, likely the record to date for any individual actor, and a record not just in quantity but in depth of libertarian content: two of his films are ranked among the Top 25 Libertarian Films ever made. His films touch upon multiple … [Read more...]
Cambodian Day of Remembrance: Five Films to Honor the Dead
Pol Pot and his gang of Khmer Rouge socialist comrades murdered 25% of Cambodian citizens, in total somewhere around two million lives, in the span of just five years (1975-1979). Cambodia declared May 20th to be a day of remembrance to honor these dead. Pol Pot was taught the wonders of agrarian socialism while attending college in France, and returned home with a … [Read more...]
May 1: Victims of Communism Day | Ten Films to Honor the Dead
Perhaps as many as a hundred million people were victims of communism in the last century, deliberately rounded up, shot, starved, or simply forced to march into snowy wasteland until dead, exterminated by communist regimes. The most comprehensive statistical source for democide statistics, Death By Government, puts the toll at 106 million. Necrometrics estimates that Stalin … [Read more...]
Happy Earth Day! /Sarc
Earth Day is an annual celebration to support "environmental protection" -- no, not primarily to promote good things like clean air and clean water, but to fight global warming, excuse me, climate change, via massive government regulation, control, and spend on a world scale. All this is justified by claims that doom is nearly upon us and can only be averted by radical change … [Read more...]