Roads, Cars, and Responsibility by Scott McPherson April 7, 2004 In the 1995 hit film French Kiss, actress Meg Ryan said she preferred to get around “as nature intended: in my car.” Though rarely stated so explicitly, this attitude sums up the typical American’s approach to travel. As anyone living in the Washington metropolitan area can attest, the result ...
Outsourcing Is a Natural Force in the Free Market by Jeffrey A. Singer April 5, 2004 The other day, while performing an emergency operation on a patient with a bleeding ulcer, it occurred to me that surgeons don’t see many ulcer patients these days. Back in the 1970s and early 80s I would operate for ulcer disease every week or so. But with the advent of new ...
Ignoring the Fear-Mongering about Outsourcing by Sheldon Richman April 5, 2004 From the way some people talk in this political season, you’d think all the good jobs are being shipped to India, leaving nothing for Americans to do but flip hamburgers and shine shoes. Don’t expect to hear sensible talk about economics in an election year. It doesn’t fit into ...
Missing the Point on Government Power by Scott McPherson April 2, 2004 Opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act has spread throughout this country. Around the nation, Americans are joining together to send a clear message to Washington that expanding federal powers at the expense of personal liberty in the name of security in the post–9/11 world is not only unnecessary, ...
Resisting the Occupation (“Liberation”) of Iraq by Jacob G. Hornberger April 2, 2004 Imagine that Chinese troops have invaded the United States with the stated goal of liberating the American people from the grips of the IRS, DEA, BATF, and the many other departments and agencies that violate the principles of freedom set forth by our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence. ...
Rebuilding America: Domestic Policy by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2004 Almost everything the federal government has touched for the last several decades is in crisis. The war on drugs: failure and destruction. Social Security: fraudulent and bankrupt. Foreign policy: led to 9/11 and massive assaults on civil liberties. Medicare and Medicaid: caused health-care costs to soar. Education: public schooling is worse than ever. Monetary policy: a plunging dollar in ...
Is Free Trade Obsolete? Part 1 by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2004 Part 1 | Part 2 In the last several decades, areas of the developing world, particularly Asia, have become politically more stable and free, more open to foreign investment. The populations there are better educated and have access to modern technology, including the Internet. They are thus more productive. This sounds like something to be welcomed, not only in a ...
The Neocon War on Peace and Freedom, Part 1 by James Bovard April 1, 2004 Part 1 | Part 2 The main problem with Bush’s war on terrorism is that he has not attacked enough foreign regimes and not sufficiently trampled the privacy of the American people. Such is the thesis of David Frum, former speechwriter for President Bush, and Richard Perle, currently on the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Board, co-authors of the new book ...
April 19: Freedom’s Birthday by Scott McPherson April 1, 2004 Americans revere a great number of dates that hold special significance for their culture and history. The Fourth of July, Veterans Day, the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a quick glance through any calendar provides numerous other examples. Yet the one day of most importance, to both the nation and its culture, is the one that is conspicuously absent ...
America’s Empire of Bases by Chalmers Johnson April 1, 2004 As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize or do not want to recognize that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a ...
Book Review: Drug War Heresies by Paul Armentano April 1, 2004 Drug War Heresies by Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); 479 pages; $28.00. In the ongoing debate over drug policy, professors Robert MacCoun and Peter Reuter are betwixt and between. On the one hand, government officials have assailed their empirical data documenting prohibition’s negligible impact on both drug use and perceived harm because it undermines ...
President Bush Owes Martha Stewart a Pardon by Jacob G. Hornberger March 31, 2004 In my March 24 article, “I Don’t Remember,” I pointed out that President Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had to be lying when they said that they could not remember the September 12, 2001, meeting with former U.S. Counterterrorism Chief Richard A. Clarke. Recall that ...