Politics

Wisconsin Invoices the Exercise of Rights

by Wendy McElroy December 19, 2011

Despite a proclaimed opposition to new taxes, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has advanced a policy that amounts to a new and draconian tax. People will have to pay the state for the privilege of free speech and assembly. To exercise those rights in or outside state facilities will entail permits at least seventy-two hours in advance and potentially prohibitive ...

What Is a Vice-President And Why?

by Wendy McElroy December 13, 2011

John Adams, the first vice-president of the United States (17891797), once exclaimed, My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived. A century later, there seemed to be little change. The 28th vice-president of the United States, Thomas R. Marshall (19131921) once stated, ...

Ron Paul’s Radical Deal

by Tim Kelly October 28, 2011

Several Republican presidential candidates have rolled out economic plans they claim will jumpstart the moribund U.S. economy and narrow the nation’s yawning fiscal gap. Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s plan creates an optional 20 percent flat income tax, restricts federal spending to 18 percent of GDP, and seeks a balanced budget by 2020. His plan also calls for lowering the corporate ...

Hope and Change? Hardly

by Rich Schwartzman October 21, 2011

George W. Bush was a disgrace to the presidency. He initiated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he ran roughshod over civil liberties here at home in the name of what he called a war on terrorism. Barack Obama is worse. Not only has Obama kept the United States engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he’s upped the U.S. military ...

Conservatives and American Empire

by Tim Kelly October 21, 2011

American conservatives who claim to value liberty and limited government but continue to take pride in the country’s bloated military establishment would do well to remember Randolph Bourne’s pithy declaration “war is the health of the state.” Conservatives will argue that the basic function of the state is to defend the country against foreign invasion or attack; therefore, allowing the ...

Would McCain Have Been Any Better?

by Laurence M. Vance October 20, 2011

It has been said that every president makes us nostalgic for his predecessor. But as bad as the presidency of Barack Obama has turned out to be, I still look back on the Bush years with regret rather than longing. George Bush will go down in history — at least among proponents of liberty, property, and peace — as one ...

Give Me Doubleplusgood or Give Me Death!

by Wendy McElroy September 15, 2011

George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, got a few things wrong — for example, the date. But he was dead-on in depicting the cause-and-effect relationship between language and politics, between language and our ability to think clearly; the process of using words as social control was called Newspeak. What cannot be expressed cannot be effectively understood or opposed. Neutralizing language ...

Why Do Republicans Want to Raise Taxes?

by Laurence M. Vance September 6, 2011

True or false: Barack Obama wants to raise taxes and Republicans in Congress want to cut them. The surprising answer is, False. Although it can usually be said that the president never met a tax hike or spending increase he didn’t like, such is not the case right now. One does not have to be a fan of Obama or ...

The Kennedy Autopsy, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 23, 2011

The Kennedy Assassination Series: The Kennedy Casket Conspiracy, by Jacob G. Hornberger The Shot That Killed Kennedy by Jacob G. Hornberger The Kennedy Autopsy, Part 1 by Jacob G. Hornberger The Kennedy Autopsy, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger The Kennedy Autopsy, Part 3 by Jacob G. Hornberger The Kennedy Autopsy, Part 4 by Jacob G. Hornberger The Kennedy ...

Minor Machiavellians

by Rich Schwartzman August 19, 2011

Lord Acton was right on when he spoke of the corrupting influence of power. Corruption happens in the tiny as well as the grand, on the local level as well as the national, even in something as insignificant as a civic association election. It was 2006 and an upstart retired admiral — Joe Sestak, a Democrat — had the audacity ...

Conservatives Dont Hate Government

by Sheldon Richman August 19, 2011

Sometimes I wonder whether the mainstream pundits listen to themselves. It’s hard to believe they would say the silly things they say if they did. For example, the talking heads on MSNBC, which works 24/7 for President Obama’s reelection, like to say that conservative Republicans “hate government.” “If you hate government,” Chris Matthews, host of Hardball, asks, “why would you ...

Which Republican Candidate Is More Conservative?

by Laurence M. Vance August 16, 2011

Although the next presidential election is more than a year away, campaigning has already begun. With a liberal Democratic incumbent in the White House, Republican candidates are loudly touting their conservative credentials. The battles over which candidate is more conservative are heating up. “I have fought against irresponsible spending while Governor Pawlenty was leaving a multi-billion-dollar budget mess in ...