The U.S. Executions of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2014 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 To understand the full context of the U.S. executions of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi Jr. (see part 1), it is necessary to first do a broad survey of American history. We begin with the Constitution, the document that brought the ...
Jane Cobden: Carrying On Her Father’s Good Work by Sheldon Richman November 1, 2014 Among libertarians and classical liberals, the name Richard Cobden (1804–1865) evokes admiration and applause. His activities — and successes — on behalf of freedom, free markets, and government retrenchment are legendary. Most famously, he co-founded — with John Bright — the Anti–Corn Law League, which successfully campaigned for repeal of the import tariffs on grain. Those trade restrictions had ...
Eric Holder: Patron Saint of Trigger-Happy Cops by James Bovard November 1, 2014 Attorney General Eric Holder received a tidal wave of laudatory media coverage for his visit to Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of a local white policeman’s killing an 18-year-old black man. Holder assured the people of Missouri, “Our investigation into this matter will be full, it will be fair, and it will be independent.” But Holder’s own record belies his ...
Politicians Ignore the Looming Debt Iceberg by George Leef November 1, 2014 We libertarians are often accused of “worshiping” the Constitution, but that charge is false. Although we don’t care one bit for the “living Constitution” theory that leads only to the expansion of state power, it does not follow that we think every idea in the written Constitution is ideal. The document is flawed, as many Americans, the Anti-Federalists, argued ...
Uniting Constitutional Protection for Economic and Social Liberties, Part 1: Substantive Due Process and Unenumerated Rights by Steven Horwitz November 1, 2014 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 We libertarians like to distinguish ourselves from our friends on the Right and Left by the fact that we care equally about both economic liberties and social/civil liberties. For libertarians the right to engage in contract and exchange with other consenting adults is just as important ...
Reining In Out-of-Control Government by David S. D'Amato November 1, 2014 The Classical Liberal Constitution by Richard A. Epstein (Harvard University Press 2014), 701 pages. In Book II of his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke says “that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” A towering figure in the Enlightenment, Locke is often called the father of classical ...
The U.S. Executions of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, Part 1 by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2014 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 In 1999, in response to an order issued by Bill Clinton to U.S. departments and agencies to release long-secret records of the U.S. national-security state relating to the 1973 military coup in Chile, the U.S. State Department released a memo ...
Smedley Butler and the Racket That Is War by Sheldon Richman October 1, 2014 From 1898 to 1931, Smedley Darlington Butler was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. By the time he retired he had achieved what was then the Corps’s highest rank, major general, and by the time he died in 1940, at 58, he had more decorations, including two medals of honor, than any other Marine. During his years in ...
American’s Fading Love of Freedom by James Bovard October 1, 2014 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 ...
Bartolomé de las Casas: All Mankind Is One by Wendy McElroy October 1, 2014 The 16th-century Spanish historian and Dominican Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566) fought against the violent colonization of and enslavement in the New World. He spoke against imperialism and for universal human rights. “All mankind is one,” he insisted; every individual possessed an identical, natural right to liberty. Las Casas was born in Seville at a fortunate time. The Italian Renaissance ...
How Laws Are Passed, Maintained, and Changed by George Leef October 1, 2014 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 ...
How the Pentagon Really Gets Funded by Philip A. Reboli October 1, 2014 Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War by Robert Gates (Knop 2014), 640 pages. The most interesting parts of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s memoir, Duty, are about how he navigated the Department of Defense (DoD) bureaucracy and the special interests who live off it. A recurring theme is the difficulty Gates had in getting the DoD ...