Why Do Tea Partiers Approve of President Bush? by James Bovard September 1, 2010 The Tea Party movement is challenging politicians and political establishments in many parts of this country. Many Tea Party supporters define themselves by their opposition to big government. However, according to an April CBS-New York Times poll, 57 percent of Tea Party supporters approve of George W. Bush. It is not surprising that Obama’s abuses would cause some people to ...
The Incessant Growth of Government Bureaucracy, Part 1 by Gregory Bresiger September 1, 2010 Part 1 | Part 2 The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, & government to gain ground. — Thomas Jefferson “It is far easier to introduce a government program than to get rid of it.” Those were the words of a former federal bureaucrat who had worked in World War II in the Office of Price Administration (OPA). ...
Persecuting a Conciliator by Sheldon Richman August 25, 2010 If a YMCA or a YMHA were planned for 51 Park Place in Lower Manhattan, two blocks from the Twin Towers’ former site, who would have noticed? Instead, the equivalent of a Muslim Y (without the implied male exclusivity) is to be built there. What’s the big deal? There can be only one answer: Consciously or not, a majority of Americans ...
None Dare Call It Tyranny by Sheldon Richman August 16, 2010 If you want to know what tyranny is like, look around. The national government — specifically the executive branch — can do pretty much what it wants. It could bomb Iran tomorrow without a declaration of war from Congress. It can — and does — conduct secret wars and covert operations against countries that have done nothing to us. Of ...
Leading Humanity Out of the Darkness, Part 3 by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2010 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 The 40-year-old war on drugs has long been a favorite government program of both liberals and conservatives. It is a program by which statists have brought nothing but death and destruction to our nation and to people all over the world. It is impossible to count ...
Statism, the Greatest Threat by James Bovard August 1, 2010 Pervasive confusion over the nature of government and freedom has opened the gates to perhaps the greatest, most widespread increase in political power in history. If we are to regain and safeguard our liberty, we must reject the tenets of modern political thinking. We must repudiate the moral presumptions and prerogatives that allow some people to vastly expand their ...
Lies Are the Health of the State by Anthony Gregory August 1, 2010 Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History, by Andrew P. Napolitano (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 349 pages. Americans take for granted that politicians lie. You know one is lying when his lips are moving, so goes the joke. Even citizens snookered by one politician’s lies will quickly acknowledge that the other side lies. “Bush Lied, People ...
Declaring Independence from the Federal Government by Ken Sturzenacker July 20, 2010 The thousands of 4th of July celebrations did not focus much on our 1776 Declaration of Independence from England. Listening to the list of complaints against England’s King George would sound too much like the complaints against our own Congress and presidents over the past five decades or so. Instead, the official part of the festivities focused on our supposed status as 50 united ...
Guantánamo and Habeas Corpus: Wins and Losses, Part 1 by Andy Worthington July 19, 2010 Part 1 | Part 2 For the last two years, the prisoners held in the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have been challenging the basis of their detention through habeas corpus petitions filed with the District Court in Washington, D.C., where they have met with a notable degree of success. Of the 51 cases decided,
The GOP Chairman Was Right about Afghanistan by Sheldon Richman July 14, 2010 They used to say the truth shall set you free. These days it might get you fired. Apparently, stumbling onto the truth is a grave offense in the Republican Party. Ask Michael Steele, its chairman. Steele provoked the wrath of Republican neoconservatives William Kristol, Liz Cheney (the former vice president’s daughter), and Sen. John McCain by saying that “the one thing ...
Desacralizing Democracy to Save Liberty by James Bovard July 1, 2010 In the 1770s, the British colonists living in America won their freedom from British rule thanks to the “de-sacralizing” of the British monarch. The mists before the colonists’ eyes dissipated and they recognized that King George III was a mere mortal and often a dangerous buffoon. Rather than being awed by the titles of the king’s ministers and appointees, ...
The Distortions Wrought by the Corporatist State by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2010 “What kind of society gives that kind of money to people who create ... nothing?” That was Chris Matthews’s comment on his MSNBC program Hardball after reporting that “the top 25 hedge fund managers made $25 billion last year.” Most libertarians will have a natural reflex against a statement like that. Indeed, Matthews packs lots of fallacies into a few ...