Government Is the Problem by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2013 Last spring Barack Obama told the graduating class of Ohio State University, Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems.… They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is ...
Where’s the Body Count from Shootings by Police? by James Bovard August 1, 2013 Barack Obama has made curtailing Americans’ right to own firearms one of his highest priorities. Earlier this year, he appealed to “all the Americans who are counting on us to keep them safe from harm.” He also declared, “If there is even one life we can save, we’ve got an obligation to try.” But some perils are not worth ...
The Outrage of Stop-and-Frisk by David S. D'Amato August 1, 2013 As the subject of an ongoing trial in federal court, Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al., the controversial police policy known as “stop and frisk” is receiving more attention than perhaps at any other moment in its history. For most of that time — and indeed it is difficult to know exactly how long the ...
The Zero Interest Option Could Wreck the Economy by Gregory Bresiger August 1, 2013 Economic history is primed to repeat in the nastiest of ways unless the government stops distorting the price of something we use every day. Every product, good, or service has a price, which is essential to rational decision-making. We use prices every day as vital data that guide us. Without true prices, prices not distorted by government fiat, we would ...
Should the Purchasing Power of Money Be Stabilized? by Alexander William Salter August 1, 2013 Economists have long debated the costs and benefits of stabilizing the purchasing power of money. Today, most First World countries’ central banks either pursue the stabilization of purchasing power as a primary goal, as in the case of the European Central Bank (technically, the stabilization of the rate of change of money’s purchasing power, by means of an inflation ...
Book Review: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by Laurence M. Vance August 1, 2013 Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by Robert Sirico (Regnery Publishing, 2012), 213 pages. Critics of the free market assert that it fails the underprivileged, leads to income inequality, exploits the poor, and is at times downright cruel. They charge its defenders with being motivated by greed, selfishness, and materialism, and making a god out ...
Book Review: Opponent of Empire by Martin Morse Wooster August 1, 2013 Rome’s Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press, 2012), 311 pages. A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty / is worth a whole eternity in bondage. — Joseph Addison, Cato Some of us know that the Cato Institute is named for Cato’s Letters, a series of essays ...
Terrorism and the Bill of Rights by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2013 In the aftermath of the Boston bombings last spring, GOP Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham and others called on Barack Obama to treat the surviving suspect in the bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as an “enemy combatant” rather than as a criminal defendant. The episode highlighted the revolutionary change in the relationship of the American people to the federal government ...
The Market Is a Beautiful Thing by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2013 Market advocates tend to respect the intellect of their fellow human beings. You can tell by their reliance on philosophical, moral, economic, and historical arguments when trying to persuade others. But what if most people’s aversion to the market isn’t founded on philosophy, morality, economics, or history? What if their objection is aesthetic? More and more I’ve come to think ...
Obama’s Latest Democracy Scam by James Bovard July 1, 2013 In his campaign earlier this year to subvert the Second Amendment, Barack Obama unveiled one of the oldest tricks in the demagogue playbook. Speaking in Colorado, he scoffed at Americans who say, “I need a gun to protect myself from the government” or “We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take our guns away.” Obama ...
The War on Americans by David S. D'Amato July 1, 2013 That the consumption of certain drugs ought to be proscribed by law is probably taken for granted by most people. The presumption in favor of banning some drugs has become so strong, so embedded in the mainstream of popular discourse as to be practically beyond debate — notwithstanding either philosophical or empirical issues that stand in contradiction to the ...
Stupidity or Plan? by Scott Horton July 1, 2013 Are America’s disasters abroad a result of stupidity or some elaborate plan? An observer of modern U.S. foreign policy can be torn on that one. It makes sense that generals, contractors, and other national-security state types will invent and follow a deliberate policy of divide and rule, as well as to create crises to move on to the next big job. ...