Politics

Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century: A Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 The threshold of the 21st century, the American people are once again faced with having to choose a president of the United States. A hundred years ago, when the 20th century began, the issue of who was ...

Education and the Presidential Race

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000

THE REPUBLICANS, as the old saying goes, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Gov. George W. Bush demonstrated that truism when he clinched the presidential nomination and told the nation that education would be at the center of his campaign. Over and over he has said that a Bush presidency would “reform education” and make sure every ...

Of, By, and For the People?

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000

We live by myths. For example, most of us believe we live in a representative, constitutional republic (sometimes erroneously called a democracy). Everyone learned this at school, and the belief follows most people throughout life. If things are not exactly to their liking, they fall back on the ...

Bush’s Social Security Sham

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000

GOP presidential hopeful George W. Bush wants to let working people invest some of the money now taken by the Social Security payroll tax. The principle is sound. Money taken by the tax is not invested, but consumed. It pays benefits to current retirees, with anything left over ...

Reno’s Disgrace

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2000

Everyone-regardless of his views on Juan Miguel Gonzalez's claim to his son-should be appalled at how Attorney General Janet Reno carried out the removal of Elián Gonzalez from the home of his great-uncle in Miami. The sight of agents of the U.S. government, clad in military-style assault gear, armed with automatic weapons, breaking into a private home in the early ...

The Hero’s Hero

by Sheldon Richman March 2, 2000

We can judge a person by his heroes. John McCain would no doubt agree. Revealingly, the hero McCain most often invokes is Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, a Progressive Republican, was a key figure in America's passage from a Jeffersonian republic to a Hamiltonian despotism. He embodied the late-19th- and early-20th-century vision in which the citizen is ...

Tell All, or Else

by Sheldon Richman March 2, 2000

The Census Bureau wants you to tell it all sorts of things about yourself, but there's one thing it doesn't want to tell you: You may be punished if you disobey. You will search in vain through the census materials you receive in the mail for notice or details of that threat. The notification letter makes ...

Count Me Out

by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2000

I got a letter from my friendly federal government the other day. It notified me that in about a week I will be mailed my U.S. Census 2000 form. Why they didn't just send the form instead of the notice, I can't fathom. But that's the least of it.

Ask Not

by Sheldon Richman February 2, 2000

John McCain tells people he is the one presidential hopeful "who can inspire young people to commit themselves to causes greater than their own self-interest." I will resist wondering whether the cause McCain has in mind is, well, McCain. No doubt this standard line of McCain's is regarded as mere boilerplate, a trademark slogan no ...

Freedom and the 21st Century

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2000

Perhaps the ultimate indictment of the government's schools is that most people think year 2000 is the 2001st year and thus the start of a new century and millennium. This is not mere quibbling. Next time someone owes you five bucks, insist that he start counting from zero, as people ...

Why Does Buchanan Scare Them?

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2000

The hysterical reaction to Pat Buchanan's presidential bid is highly revealing. It says little about Buchanan but much about his critics. There is much in Buchanan's platform to object to, but it plays a small role in understanding the criticism. Buchanan is, to be sure, a protectionist. He falls for all the hoary protectionist fallacies that have long been exploded. ...

Short-Circuit the Internet Tax

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2000

The wish to tax sales over the Internet has only one explanation: greed. I use that word advisedly. It is typically thrown around promiscuously to smear business people who earn fortunes by making consumers better off. That's a bad use of the term. But if by "greed" ...