Gulf War II opened the eyes of Americans to the UN and the media
By Dave Duffy
Issue #82 • July/August, 2003
How many of you were tightly tuned to the TV like I was during Gulf War II. I hope a lot because it was a great education. Not...
Fake lawsuits, stacked juries, and LAWYERS!
By John Silveira
Issue #89 • September/October, 2004
Mac, that's O.E. MacDougal, our poker playing friend from Southern California, is back. He blew into town yesterday with the good weather and brought his fishing rods, his...
An American dollar worth two cents
By John Silveira
Issue #129 • May/June, 2011
Most Americans are unaware that today's dollar has the purchasing power that roughly four cents had back in 1913. That was the year the Federal Reserve (the Fed)...
Lessons for My Children, Chapter 2: Statistics, history, and the rise of the Underground...
By Dave Duffy
Issue #137 • September/October, 2012
I've always been a student of science and history. They tell you things many people don't know. I especially pay attention to statistics, which underlies all science, and...
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...
Putting it all on the Amtrak line for Self-Reliance magazine
By Dave Duffy
Issue #163 • January/February, 2017
As publisher of Backwoods Home Magazine for 28 years, I have not had to work as hard in recent years, as younger people like Managing Editor Jessie Denning...
Just how good of a bet are those lotto tickets?
By John Silveira
Issue #37 • January/February, 1996
I looked at the newspaper and tried to match up the lotto results printed there with my picks. I sighed. "Boy, I sure would've liked to have won...
Terrorist attack! Was this predictable?
By John Silveira
September 11, 2001
I was awakened to news about the suicide attacks by my daughter. Quite frankly, I thought it was the beginning of a bad joke she'd heard and I was expecting...
Understanding the gun debate, part 1
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #161 • September/October, 2016
It has been said that gun legislation and abortion are the two most polarizing issues in the United States. The former has taken the lead on both the...
Confronting the enemy
By Dave Duffy
Issue #81 • May/June, 2003
I got a lot of criticism a couple of issues ago from liberals when I pointed my finger at black Americans and asked why they had their heads...
Should we scrap our ‘old’ Constitution?
By John Silveira
Issue #135 • May/June, 2012
In a recent New York Times article by Adam Liptak, he observed that the Constitution of the United States is not only the oldest constitution in existence, but...
Stumbling over your own stupidity
By John Silveira
Issue #64 • July/August, 2000
There are several morals to be found in this story. You can find most of them yourself. But I'm only interested in one of them. The story was...
Working for a dad who works at home
By Annie Duffy
Issue #40 • July/August, 1996
I am homeschooled, and part of my homeschooling involves working for my Dad on this magazine. It has been a good learning experience for me. Not only have...
Can an understanding of math and statistics save America’s freedoms?
By Dave Duffy
Issue #66 • November/December, 2000
The other day John Silveira and I were walking by a gas station in Gold Beach, Oregon, where this magazine is located, when I remarked, "The price of...
Avoiding legal traps
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #105 • May/June, 2007
Dave Duffy wrote recently on the plight of Brad Metcalf. There are several lessons to be learned.
Metcalf represented himself, pro se, in court. This is almost never a...
The world’s least-free country
By John Silveira
Issue #77 • September/October, 2002
Here's a quiz: Which is the freest country on earth? The answer's easy. It's the United States. Ask anyone. And why are we the freest? Not because we're...































