Throughout the world, America has been known as the “land of the free.” Today however, real life in the United States is quite different from the famous promise. Over the past century, the U.S. government has grown astronomically as the average citizen’s life is increasingly taxed, regulated, and spied upon. In the last few years alone, federal spending has skyrocketed by almost 30%, creating the largest deficit in U.S. history and extensive corporate welfare, pork, and abuses of civil and economic liberties. In his work, noted legal scholar Richard Epstein goes to the root of the problem, addressing the moral and conceptual foundations of liberty and how they have been systematically undermined. Should individuals be free to make their own peaceful choices or should decisions by special interests in the name of the “public good” be imposed by force? What about property rights, taxes, regulation, civil rights, and the welfare state? At this Independent Policy Forum, Richard Epstein and historian and economist Jeffrey Rogers Hummel will discuss why the time has come for a bold new defense of the free society.