Augusto Pinochet and the Conservative Threat to America by Jacob G. Hornberger January 12, 2005 While some people might believe that those on the Left wing of the political spectrum pose the bigger threat to the freedom and well-being of the American people, nothing could be further from the truth. Today, the much bigger threat (Readhere and here) comes instead from the Right wing or conservative side ...
Liberate Us from the Educators by Scott McPherson January 10, 2005 The state’s monopoly on education is perhaps the worst thing that has ever happened to children in America. From the earliest days of the republic, education was provided by parents, churches, and local communities. The first proposals for state-supported schools were merely calls to address an absence of ...
Tsunami Aid: Not Theirs to Give by Sheldon Richman January 7, 2005 The devastating earthquake-induced tidal waves in Asia are the latest reminders that Mother Nature can be a mass killer. It’s worth contemplating that the societies that interfere most with nature — the rich, market-oriented industrial societies — are the least vulnerable to her ravages. That’s not what the environmentalists ...
Why Trust in Social Security? by Jacob G. Hornberger January 3, 2005 Isn’t a central argument among those who argue for the continuation of America’s premier socialist program, Social Security, that Americans cannot be trusted to voluntarily take care of the needs of their elderly parents? Let’s set aside all the nonsense about “I put it in and therefore I have a right to ...
The Bill of Rights: Trial by Jury by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2005 The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part as follows: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.... Trial by jury is one of the essential prerequisites of a free society. As our ...
What Is Living and What Is Dead in Classical Liberalism by Charles K. Rowley January 1, 2005 This paper was presented at The Future of Freedom Foundations five-year anniversary conference in 1994. Introduction The momentous upheaval in Eastern Europe in 1989, followed by the complete disintegration of the USSR, did not usher in the end of history as claimed by overly-enthusiastic Western commentators such as Fukuyama (1992) in the first wave of euphoria over the collapse of Marxist-Leninist ...
Bureaucracy: A Mises Classic, Part 1 by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2005 Part 1 | Part 2 Ludwig von Mises, the great expositor of the Austrian school of economics, left an awesome, even intimidating, body of work. Human Action and Socialism are among the most important books written in economic and social theory, yet most people with little spare time will probably not try to tackle them. Mises’s shorter works ...
Bush’s Presidential-Papers Power Grab by James Bovard January 1, 2005 On November 1, 2001, President Bush issued an executive order entitled “Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act.” His order effectively overturned an act of Congress and a Supreme Court decision and could make it far more difficult for Americans to learn of government abuses. Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University ...
Equal Rights for the Disabled, Indeed by Scott McPherson January 1, 2005 ... a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. — Thomas Jefferson, 1801 Of all the misunderstandings that exist in ...
The Myth of the Level Playing Field by Samuel Bostaph January 1, 2005 One of the catch phrases of the day is “a level playing field.” Some businessmen are using it to refer to the competitive situation in which they would prefer to be, but allege they are not for some reason. And, not surprisingly, the reason they usually give for not having “a level playing field” is that a competitor has ...
Government Can’t Run Schools Like Businesses by Thomas L. Johnson January 1, 2005 What this all boils down to is, are we trying to raise sheep — timid, docile, easily driven or led — or free men? If what we want is sheep, our schools are perfect as they are. If what we want is free men, we’d better start making some big changes. — John Holt, The Underachieving School Just ...
How the Enemy Combatant Label Is Being Used, Part 1 by Jesslyn Radack January 1, 2005 Part 1 | Part 2 On Monday, October 4, the Supreme Court declined to consider a petition filed by Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. Al-Marri is perhaps the least well known of the three persons who have been held in the United States as enemy combatants. The decision was unsurprising yet still disappointing. Al-Marri, who has been waiting for nearly three ...