Commentary Archives - Backwoods Home Magazine

Lessons for My Children…Chapter 3: Hiding from the government

By Dave Duffy Issue #138 • November/December, 2012 After opening the discussion in this column last issue about the underground economy, I thought it would be a good idea to explore it more thoroughly since it...

Self-reliance equals freedom

By Dave Duffy Issue #107 • September/October, 2007 There seems always to be an underlying debate among self-reliant types who make up a majority of the readership of this magazine as to whether or not the...

Some thoughts on growing older in the backwoods

By Marjorie Burris Issue #16 • July/August, 1992 "Just how long are you going to be able to live in the backwoods like that?" my friend, Pat, asked. "You're not getting any younger, you know!" I've known...

Here are some answers to often-asked questions of anti-gunners

By Massad Ayoob Issue #45 • May/June, 1997 It has become increasingly politically incorrect to be a firearms owner. This is because trends tend to be set by the fashionable and the media-connected in metropolitan environments....

Confessions of a former liberal

By Dave Duffy Issue #50 • March/April, 1998 There is an old adage that goes something like: "If you're not a liberal when you're in your 20s you haven't got a heart; if you're not a...

The destruction of the mass print media will help save freedom in America

By Dave Duffy Issue #119 • September/October, 2009 I tend to be an optimist, even though the state of America's economy and politics does not appear very promising right now. So I want to talk about...

The Government intimidation factor and its effect on the health of society

By Dave Duffy Issue #142 • July/August, 2013 How do you take the temperature of a society, that is, how do you tell if a society is healthy or sick? Several years after the Soviet Union dissolved...

I stink! but that’s okay

By Dave Duffy Issue #83 • September/October, 2003 There are valuable life lessons to be learned from realizing you're not very good at a lot of things, even at things you think are important to be...

If you don’t like it here, why don’t you move to another country?

By John Silveira Issue #99 • May/June, 2006 That's a question I've been confronted with, more than once, when I've complained about the PATRIOT Act, the RICO Act, creeping gun control, the empowerment of the bureaucracy,...

Justice Breyer is wrong about the 2nd Amendment

By John Silveira Issue #128 • March/April, 2011 December 12, 2010, on Fox News Sunday, Justice Stephen Breyer said the Founding Fathers never intended for guns to go unregulated. His reasoning was that James Madison, often...

The land of the unfree

By John Silveira Issue #101 • September/October, 2006 It's official! The numbers are in once again! For I-don't-know-how-many-years-running, the United States, this so-called "land of the free," is imprisoning more people, in both absolute numbers and...