Daily Articles

Gun Control, Patriotism, and Civil Disobedience

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 1991

The State of California recently enacted a law which requires owners of semiautomatic weapons to register their guns with the state. But when the law went into effect thousands of California gun owners, although risking a felony conviction, refused to comply with its requirements. The gun owners were immediately showered with harsh criticism, not only from their public officials but ...

Something Must Be Done!

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1991

During hard times there are few phrases as frequently heard as, "Something must be done!" And what is usually meant by the phrase is that governmental action is needed to cure the economic woes of society. In other words, government spending should be increased to raise the demand for goods and ...

Are Compulsory School Attendance Laws Necessary? Part 3

by Samuel L. Blumenfeld May 1, 1991

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Today the law is not being used to force delinquents and truants into the schools, but to harass and regulate home schoolers and fundamentalist Christian schools. In the 1800s it was assumed that if you attended a public school you learned to read and write. Today, no such assumption can ...

Book Review: The Hemisphere of Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1991

This Hemisphere of Liberty: A Philosophy of the Americas by Michael Novak (Washington, D.C.: The American Enterprise Institute Press, 1990) 152 pages; $18.95. Michael Novak is one of the most eloquent Christian advocates of capitalism in the United States. His 1982 volume The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism demonstrated that rather than suffering ...

Book Review: The Economics of Plunder

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1991

Government: Whose Obedient Servant? A Primer in Public Choice by Gordon Tullock, Arthur Seldon, and Gordon L. Brady (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2000); 184 pages; $15. IN SPITE OF THE COLOSSAL DISASTER of socialism throughout the world and the corrupt inefficiencies and distortions caused by the interventionist-welfare state, virtually every country in the ...

Why Not Separate School and State?

by Leonard Read April 1, 1991

Government "education" includes three forms of coercion: (1) compulsory attendance, (2) government dictated curricula, and (3) the forcible collection of the wherewithal to pay the enormous bill.... The results of force are bad enough as related to the pocket-book, but they are far worse as they ...

Are Compulsory School Attendance Laws Necessary? Part 2

by Samuel L. Blumenfeld April 1, 1991

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Both the Unitarians and the liberal Protestants began to view the public schools and compulsory attendance as the most effective means of maintaining the Protestant character of American culture in the face of massive Catholic immigration. The fact that the Irish were poor and unschooled did not endear them to the ...

Politically Correct Thinking and State Education

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 1991

You may recall seeing the December 24, 1990, issue of Newsweek on the newsstands. The cover had a granite wall with raised lettering, spelling out the words, "Thought Police." If you read the article, you learned about something called "politically correct thinking." A growing number of institutions of higher learning ...

Reflections on National Service

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 1991

National service looms as one of the most dangerous threats to the American people in our 200-year history. Previously advocated only by liberals, national service is now also embraced by many on the conservative side of the political spectrum, as evidenced by the recent book, Gratitude, by America's foremost conservative, ...

Book Reviews: Economics on Trial

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 1991

Economics on Trial: Lies, Myths, and Realities by Mark Skousen (Homewood, Illinois: Business One Irwin, 1990) 314 pp.; $21.95 (h). For 150 years after Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, most economists started from a ...

Why Americans Won’t Choose Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 1991

All across the land there is an unusual stirring among the American populace. The American people are sensing that something is severely wrong in our nation. They see the ever-increasing taxation, regulation, bureaucracies, and police intrusions. And they are gradually discovering that, despite their right to vote, they have ...

Producer Interest vs. The Public Interest: The Origin of Democratized Privilege

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 1991

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith constructed some of the most devastating arguments against the then-prevailing system of economic policy — mercantilism. In practically every country in Europe, governments regulated, controlled and planned the economic activities of their subjects. In France, the regulations were so detailed that they specified how many stitches should be used in ...