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American’s Fading Love of Freedom

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Tea Party protesters, some Republicans, and many libertarians perceive the federal government as a vast engine of oppression. But are anti-Obama activists mistaken in presuming that most Americans still care about freedom? A Gallup poll released in July asked a thousand Americans, “Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what to do with your life?” Admittedly, only 21 percent said they were dissatisfied. But that percentage had more than doubled since the previous Gallup poll on this question in 2006, when only 9 percent complained. That number was surprisingly low, considering the controversies back then over the USA PATRIOT ACT and repressive “free speech zones,” and the first round of explosive revelations of National Security Agency illegal wiretaps on thousands of Americans. Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign exploited the Bush administration’s civil-liberties record to hype a one-term senator from Illinois as America’s constitutional savior. Much of the press coverage of that poll has focused on the fact that ...

How Laws Are Passed, Maintained, and Changed

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Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers: The Economic Engine of Political Change by Wayne A. Leighton and Edward J. Lopez (Stanford Economics and Finance 2013), 209 pages. Have you ever wondered why democracies so often generate public policies that are wasteful and unjust? Have you asked why such policies persist over long periods, even when they are known to be harmful and better policies exist? And if you’ve pondered those questions, do you want to understand why, on rare occasions, bad policies get repealed, while most of them remain untouchable? Congratulations. If you have entertained those questions, or now see that they are worth entertaining, this is a book you must read. In Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers, economics professors Wayne Leighton (Universidad Francisco Marroquin) and Edward Lopez (Western Carolina University) take readers on an intellectual journey in search of the answers. The authors explain the connection between ideas, the “products” of the academic scribblers of their title, and the ...

End Immigration Socialism

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I had an interesting debate against a conservative named Mark Krikorean on the Stossel show on the Fox Business Network on the subject of immigration. Krikorean heads up an organization called the Center for Immigration Studies, which calls for immigration controls. As I have long pointed out, I find conservatives to be fascinating people. One reason for my fascination is that they advocate principles and policies that are opposite from each other and, even better, they don’t even seem to realize it. Immigration is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Every conservative will tell you that he favors “free enterprise, private property, and limited government.” It’s one of their most popular mantras. They use it in their speeches, post it on their websites, and have it on their business cards. They might even believe it. But then they favor immigration controls, which are the exact opposite of “free markets, private property, and limited government.” My hunch is that they don’t even notice the contradiction, ...

Fed Follies: Central Bank Continues to Force Economy in Wrong Direction

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For more than a decade, now, Federal Reserve policy has been guided by the fear of one economic bogyman: the presumed danger of “price deflation.” The fear is unfounded and the inflationary “solution” only leads to disaster. During Alan Greenspan’s and Ben Bernanke’s watches at the helm of America’s central bank and now under Janet Yellen, the claim has been ...