Help Wanted signs are now even more common than No Hunting Signs. This has positive implications for people who want to hunt our place. We don’t charge dollars to hunt here, say $125 per person for deer and $500 to hunt elk. Instead, we trade hunting rights for work on our recreation land and waters. […]
Read MoreIt’s snowing hard at our Gallatin Valley ranch at noon on May 17, 2017. I’m writing to correct today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article listing FREE as skeptical about climate change. No, we aren’t. The data is clear: Average temperatures in Montana have warmed up by 2-3 degrees Fahrenheit since the early 1900’s. Here is the back-story. […]
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Foreword by John Baden We can learn a great deal from the recent standoff in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Clear and agreed upon property rights are critical to civility and productivity. It is nearly impossible to have peace and prosperity when property rights are seriously contested. This is as true in Oregon as in […]
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Community and Creative Destruction Last weekend Ramona and I enjoyed a 500 mile road trip with close friends. We drove to Fort Benton, Montana, a town established in 1847 by fur traders. It peaked in population, some 2000 residents, and prosperity in the mid-1800s. The town was the world’s “innermost port” and the head of […]
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The last FREE Insights, January 15th, focused on community security. I noted the next few FREE Insights would explore another feature of our local culture, strong commitments to deliver necessities and services to the poor, unfortunate, and the needy. This is true but incomplete. The community also responds to victories and promising opportunities. Here is […]
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Culture, Community, and Civility: Code of the (New) West Living here is a great blessing for Ramona and me. We greatly appreciate the wonderful natural, cultural, and prosperous environment of the Gallatin Valley. Even these stellar qualities are sometimes trumped by seeing people care for one another. Our community has culture of civility and caring–even […]
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Federal bureaucracy gets in the way of complex ongoing relationships that serve civil society. If you want to see the case for limited government, consider that there’s a siege happening in some dusty corner of Nevada over tortoise welfare. Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher currently engaged in a standoff with the federal government over grazing […]
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Americans are a notoriously mobile people. Families relocate to new places with remarkable frequency. Traditionally, moves are motivated by better employment opportunities. Going to the Bakken oil patch is an obvious example. No one goes there to enhance immediate quality of life. Money is the motivator. Salary and wages surely are not the only consideration […]
Read MoreLike other towns that demonstrate a strong sense of community Bozeman is a wonderful place. I wrote this as a Letter to the Editor of the Bozeman Chronicle to thank the unknown person who found the keys to my Jeep on the sidewalk somewhere and put them under the driver’s side windshield wiper. As […]
Read MoreWe are in the middle of FREE’s last summer conference, “Boom and Bust in America”. This is the last of our summer programs. It concludes twenty-two years of programs applying economics to contentious topics. All featured the potentials of creativity and hazards of command. Soon we will begin our more focused salon series, Yellowstone […]
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