The Bill of Rights: The Rights of the Accused by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2005 Among the legitimate purposes of government is the punishment of those who violate the rights of others through the commission of violent or forceful acts, such as murder, rape, robbery, theft, burglary, or trespass. As the Framers understood, however, the matter does not end there because an important inquiry immediately arises: How do we ensure that people are not ...
Bureaucracy: A Mises Classic, Part 2 by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2005 Part 1 | Part 2 Last month I discussed Ludwig von Mises’s presentation of profit management in his great little book Bureaucracy. He explains in detail how consumers “use” the price and profit-and-loss systems to direct entrepreneurs toward producing the things they want most urgently. (Of course, they don’t self-consciously use these systems; they simply buy and abstain ...
Bush Profiteering from Housing Defaults by James Bovard February 1, 2005 President Bush is determined to end the prejudice against people who want to buy a home but don’t have any money. Since he became president the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has spent more than $120 billion. HUD public-housing projects continue to devastate poor neighborhoods. HUD largesse to local governments continues to finance the confiscation and demolition ...
The Greatest Safeguard Against Tyranny by Scott McPherson February 1, 2005 One is misled not by what he does not know but by what he believes he knows. — Jean Jacques Rousseau, On Education The purpose of government is the protection of individual rights. Government officials are elected and appointed to ensure that the citizenry are safe from military invasion, as well as from the ...
Gun Control and the War on Drugs by Anthony Gregory February 1, 2005 Many opponents of gun control support the war on drugs, and many critics and reformers of America's drug laws tend to believe in gun control. Conservatives tend to fall into the first category and liberals into the second. In reality, these two issues are more similar than many people might think. In both cases -- laws that restrict which guns people ...
A Letter to My Friend Who Supports the Drug War by James Muhm February 1, 2005 My friend, we’ve been discussing this war on drugs for quite a while, and whether or not it is doing anything to reduce drug use. We both agree that most drugs, particularly “hard” drugs, have a harmful and debilitating effect on most persons who use them. And yet, is the metaphorical war on drugs doing what it is supposed ...
How the Enemy Combatant Label Is Being Used, Part 2 by Jesslyn Radack February 1, 2005 Part 1 | Part 2 On Monday, October 4, the Supreme Court declined to consider a petition filed by Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. Al-Marri is perhaps the least well known of the three persons who have been held in the United States as enemy combatants. The decision was unsurprising yet still disappointing. Al-Marri, who has been waiting for nearly three ...
Book Review: The Bush Betrayal by Brigid ONeill February 1, 2005 The Bush Betrayal by James Bovard (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); 336 pages; $26.95. The reelection of George Walker Bush rubs too much like the gruesome aftermath of a hit and run — made bearable only by our instinctual ability to self-medicate in numbness. For a first-stage coping mechanism — just ask the Sopranos psychiatrist — it ...
The Bill of Rights: Trial by Jury by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2005 The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part as follows: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.... Trial by jury is one of the essential prerequisites of a free society. As our ...
Bureaucracy: A Mises Classic, Part 1 by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2005 Part 1 | Part 2 Ludwig von Mises, the great expositor of the Austrian school of economics, left an awesome, even intimidating, body of work. Human Action and Socialism are among the most important books written in economic and social theory, yet most people with little spare time will probably not try to tackle them. Mises’s shorter works ...
Bush’s Presidential-Papers Power Grab by James Bovard January 1, 2005 On November 1, 2001, President Bush issued an executive order entitled “Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act.” His order effectively overturned an act of Congress and a Supreme Court decision and could make it far more difficult for Americans to learn of government abuses. Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University ...
Equal Rights for the Disabled, Indeed by Scott McPherson January 1, 2005 ... a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. — Thomas Jefferson, 1801 Of all the misunderstandings that exist in ...