The Creeping Takeover of Medical Care, Part 2 by Sheldon Richman December 1, 1997 Part 1 | Part 2 In Part I we saw that the right to medical care is a pseudo right. It cannot be a real right because it conflicts with rights that stand the test of authenticity. But that is only the beginning of what's wrong with trying to enforce a right to medical care. Imagine for a moment a ...
Killing and Lying for Safety: Airbags and the Salvation State by James Bovard December 1, 1997 Airbags symbolize the bogus paternalism that increasingly blights Americans' lives. In order to save lives, federal regulators seem to have granted themselves a license to kill. While airbags are sometimes seen as an arcane consumer issue, they are actually a great lesson of the danger of the combination of ...
Economic Sanctions: Who Has What Rights? by Samuel Bostaph December 1, 1997 Christmas is one of the most joyful times of the year for most Americans. Gaily decorated houses, yards, and Christmas trees sprout nationwide in November and last until the New Year season closes the holidays with fireworks, parties and, finally, the Super Bowl. People decorate their Christmas trees in many ways, but one of the staples is bright, multicolored strings ...
Book Review: Reniassance by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1997 Renaissance: The Rebirth of Liberty in the Heart of Europe by Václav Klaus (Washington, D.C.: The Cato Institute, 1997); 177 pages; $18.95. 0ut of all the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the one that has so far had the greatest success in instituting market-oriented reform is the Czech Republic. Czechoslovakia emerged as an independent country in 1918, ...
Compromise and Concealment–The Road to Defeat, Part 3 by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 1997 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 Libertarian candidates for public office often say, "A no-compromise approach may be fine for a think tank, but it has no place in a political campaign. We have to be practical. We can't turn voters into libertarians overnight. ...
Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 11: The Great Depression and the Crisis of Government Intervention by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1997 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | ...
The Creeping Takeover of Medical Care, Part 1 by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1997 Part 1 | Part 2 President Clinton favors barring health-insurance companies from using genetic testing to determine whom they will insure. If that position is enacted into law, it will be one more step toward what he has been aiming at since he came into office: a government takeover of medical care. Why shouldn't health underwriters use the results of ...
Ruining People’s Lives for Fun and Profit by James Bovard November 1, 1997 In recent years, entrapment schemes have exploded as government agencies seek to distract attention from their failure to protect citizens from real criminals and to maximize their power to intimidate the citizenry. Entrapment is "the act of officers or agents of the government in inducing a person to commit ...
Contra Gradualism by Wendy McElroy November 1, 1997 It is 1858 and you are living in a Northern town. A man has arrived at your door with papers documenting his ownership of a runaway slave whom you are sheltering. The slave throws himself at your feet, begging to stay while the slaveowner reasons with you. Being philosophically inclined, he ...
Book Review: Power Kills by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1997 Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence by R.J. Rummel (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1997); 246 pages; $32.95. In 1994, political scientist R.J. Rummel summarized the consequences of tyrannical government in the 20th century in his book Death by Government. (See the review in Freedom Daily, October 1994.) His research showed that governments around the world had killed ...
Compromise and Concealment-The Road to Defeat, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1997 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 The libertarian philosophy holds that people should be free to do whatever they want, so long as their conduct is peaceful. Therefore, government's role in life should be limited to: (1) punishing people who initiate force against others ...
Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 10: Austrian Business Cycle Theory and the Causes of the Great Depression by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1997 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | ...