Horrors! Maybe the Schools Are Working Just Fine by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1995 Most people today are convinced that the public schools are failing. Dissatisfaction with public education is at an all-time high. But have the public schools really failed? That depends on what they were originally set up to do. In a profound sense, the public schools are not an American institution. They were ...
What’s Wrong with History Standards? by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1995 The latest fight on the nation's bloody educational battlefield is over the newly released national standards for teaching history to America's schoolchildren. The standards were drawn up by the federally funded National Center for History in the Schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. They are part of ...
Resolving the School Prayer Conflict by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1995 The controversy about school prayer threatens to aggravate the already intense dispute over the role of public schools in America. Flush from their midterm election victory, the new Republican congressional majority is talking about launching a constitutional amendment to reverse the 30-year-old Supreme Court ruling barring formal prayer in ...
Just Say No to the War on Drugs by Karen Selick July 1, 1995 Although I don't practice criminal law, I recently found myself waiting in a courtroom during a sentencing. The accused was a young man of perhaps twenty, who had rather imprudently sold six grams of cannabis resin to a police officer, pocketing the grand sum of about $100. He pleaded guilty, and the crown and ...
Book Review: A Terrible Revenge by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 1995 A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the Eastern European Germans, 1944-1950 by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994); 179 pages;. $19.95. Speaking to a group of German officers over dinner in September 1941, Adolf Hitler explained: "It is the eternal law of nature that gives Germany as ...
The Power to Declare War — Who Speaks for the Constitution? Part 2 by Doug Bandow July 1, 1995 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 What conceivable justification is there for ignoring the Constitution's straightforward requirement regarding the power to declare war? Advocates of expansive executive war power — oddly enough, including some conservatives who claim to believe in a jurisprudence of "original intent" — have come up with a number of reasons to give ...
American Foreign Policy — The Turning Point, 1898–1919 Part 6 by Ralph Raico July 1, 1995 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 The vast changes that the First World War was to bring about began to occur even while the war was still going on. In February 1917, the Tsarist Russian state collapsed, and a provisional government was established. But ...
Book Review: Separating School & State by Jim Powell July 1, 1995 Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families by Sheldon Richman (Fairfax, Virginia: The Future of Freedom Foundation, 1994); 128 pages; $22.95 hardcover; $14.95 softcover. This is a thrilling book. Although there have been several powerful books on the education crisis, this one ventures where few have dared to ...
Terrorism — Public and Private by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 1995 On April 19, 1995, the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed. Hundreds of people, including children, were killed or injured. Although federal government officials have been sporadically killed in the line of duty in the past, this was the first mass killing of federal civil servants in American history. There was tremendous shock, anger, and outrage over the Oklahoma ...
The Oklahoma Tragedy and the Mass Media by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1995 The hundreds of pictures and thousands of words that have appeared in the popular press since the Oklahoma City bombing tell us much about America and its people. The images and descriptions of the killed and wounded have aroused the sympathy and concern of millions of Americans. Countless prayers have been offered for the dead and those they left ...
American Foreign Policy — The Turning Point, 1898–1919 Part 5 by Ralph Raico June 1, 1995 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 When the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany in February 1917, war did not immediately follow. President Wilson hesitated to take that final, fateful step, first asking Congress for authority to arm U.S. merchant ships. Since ...
Freedom through Encryption by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1995 When the history of the modern struggle for liberty is written, Philip Zimmermann will be celebrated as a true hero. To understand why, we must explore the issue of privacy in the information age. It is a story that should the thrill the heart of every lover of liberty. The government has always been able to read our mail. After ...