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...]
R. J. Mitchell: Happy Angel Birthday!
British aeronautical engineer R. J. Mitchell was born on May 20th, 1895. He is little known today, but as the inventor of the Spitfire fighter plane, he is said to have done more to turn back the Nazi menace than anyone other than Churchill. What makes his story all the more remarkable is that his heroism was largely single-handed and alone, occurring in the mid-1930s before … [Read more...]
Tillie Majczek: The Mom Who Toiled 11 Years to Free Son Remembered in Film
Tillie Majczek. That's a name to remember on Mother's Day. She scrubbed floors for 11 years to raise the money to free her son from a false murder conviction -- and succeeded. Her story, and that of the reporter who took up her cause, is told in the 1948 film Call Northside 777. It's a sweet story and a tribute to a free press. … [Read more...]
Friedrich Hayek: Happy Angel Birthday!
Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek (aka F. A. Hayek) was born on May 8th, 1899. He was a formidable defender of human liberty and warned early of the dangers of centralized power associated with socialism. Here are six short films to celebrate his birthday. … [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...]
Oscar Schindler: Happy Angel Birthday!
Oscar Schindler, memorialized in the 1993 film Schindler's List, was born on April 28th, 1908. His powerful story, extraordinarily well-told by Steven Spielberg, so impressed critics that it won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. … [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...]
Waco Anniversary Recalls Film That Exposed Cover-Up
Thirty-one years ago today, a religious commune in Waco, Texas was raided by FBI and BATF, resulting in the holocaust of 76 people including children, burnt alive. The official story was initially that the tragedy was a mass suicide, that authorities never fired a shot and never set fire to their compound. That became -- through constant repetition -- the narrative that … [Read more...]
Mae West Wins “Wittiest Line In Defense Of Liberty”
Mae West is sometimes cited as an early libertarian for her then scandalous, now liberated, views regarding criminalization of homosexuality, miscegenation, and other "sins." Per The Guardian, "Constantly denounced by the conservative press, pursued by police and censors, West became a leading symbol of the Roaring Twenties and made numerous appearances in the criminal … [Read more...]