Morals and the Welfare State, Part 1 by F.A. Harper September 1, 2000 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 TO MANY PERSONS, the welfare state has become a symbol of morality and righteousness. This makes those who favor the welfare state appear to be the true architects of a better world; those who oppose it, immoral rascals who might be expected to rob banks, or ...
Book Review: Power and Prosperity by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 2000 Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships by Mancur Olson (New York: Basic Books, 2000); 233 pages; $28. MANCUR OLSON, who died in 1998 at the age of 62, was one of the most insightful economic analysts of the political process. His most original and important work was The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of ...
The Constitution: Liberties of the People and Powers of Government, Part 1 by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2000 Part 1 | Part 2 The most radical experiment in history is the Constitution of the United States of America. Throughout history, people had accepted the commonly held notion that government’s powers over the citizenry were supreme. In 1787, however, for the first time ever, the American people announced to the world that the liberties of the people were ...
Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century: A Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 3 by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 2000 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 The New York Times: In a recent public opinion poll, 71 percent of the respondents said that the protection of the existing Social Security system was important in evaluating a presidential candidate. Yet you seem to be calling for the abolition of ...
The Bankrupt Anti-Gun Movement by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2000 IF THE CHARACTER of the anti-gun-rights forces was in doubt before the Million Mom March last spring, there is no longer any doubt. The statements of the leading participants vividly revealed them as demagogues who seek only to play on blind emotion in order to push an agenda that would violate a basic individual right: the right to defend ...
How the State Became Immaculate, Part 1 by James Bovard August 1, 2000 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The founding fathers took a dim view of claims of the unlimited beneficence of government. George Washington declared, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force.” John Adams wrote in 1772: “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free ...
The Black Hole of Higher Education by George Leef August 1, 2000 ONE OF THE GREAT growth industries in America in the second half of the 20th century was higher education. Prior to World War II, there were only 1.5 million students enrolled in some 1,700 colleges and universities. Spending per student was about $450. By the late 1990s, the student population had grown to 14.4 million ...
Crime Creation by Richard O. Rowland August 1, 2000 THE HAWAII TAX on cigarettes is the highest in the nation; $1 per package, $10 per carton. That’s after the federal government applies its tax. If you want to display your protest to a mindless drivel of government laws and rules, one way to do it is to smoke. So, cigarette smoking is appealing to teenagers, many of whom are ...
Book Review: From Subsistence to Exchange and Other Essays by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 2000 From Subsistence to Exchange and Other Essays by Peter Bauer (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000); 153 pages; $24.95. FREE-MARKET ECONOMIST Peter T. Bauer is 85 years old this year. During the 55 years since the end of the Second World War, Bauer has been one of the most articulate and insightful critics of economic planning and government intervention in the ...
Sighting in the Second Amendment by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2000 WE SHOULD NOT let the hoopla associated with the Million Mom March cause us to lose sight of the real purpose and meaning behind the Second Amendment: the ability to protect ourselves from the tyranny of our own government. Virtually all the arguments in the gun-control debate have revolved around gun violence in American society. The proponents of registration, licensing, ...
Reform Social Security … or Repeal It? by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2000 WITH THE presidential campaign season here, the quadrennial debate over Social Security has begun. Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush is calling for Social Security reform. He says that people should have the right to have their Social Security funds invested in the stock market. Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore says ...
Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century: A Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 2 by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2000 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 Ladies and gentlemen of the press, America is entering the 21st century as still one of the greatest nations in the world. We have had a booming economy for most of the last two decades that has created tens of millions of ...