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 ...
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 ...
Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century: A Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 1 by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2000 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 The threshold of the 21st century, the American people are once again faced with having to choose a president of the United States. A hundred years ago, when the 20th century began, the issue of who was ...
Education and the Presidential Race by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000 THE REPUBLICANS, as the old saying goes, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Gov. George W. Bush demonstrated that truism when he clinched the presidential nomination and told the nation that education would be at the center of his campaign. Over and over he has said that a Bush presidency would “reform education” and make sure every ...
Of, By, and For the People? by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000 We live by myths. For example, most of us believe we live in a representative, constitutional republic (sometimes erroneously called a democracy). Everyone learned this at school, and the belief follows most people throughout life. If things are not exactly to their liking, they fall back on the ...
Bush’s Social Security Sham by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000 GOP presidential hopeful George W. Bush wants to let working people invest some of the money now taken by the Social Security payroll tax. The principle is sound. Money taken by the tax is not invested, but consumed. It pays benefits to current retirees, with anything left over ...
Reno’s Disgrace by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2000 Everyone-regardless of his views on Juan Miguel Gonzalez's claim to his son-should be appalled at how Attorney General Janet Reno carried out the removal of Elián Gonzalez from the home of his great-uncle in Miami. The sight of agents of the U.S. government, clad in military-style assault gear, armed with automatic weapons, breaking into a private home in the early ...
The Hero’s Hero by Sheldon Richman March 2, 2000 We can judge a person by his heroes. John McCain would no doubt agree. Revealingly, the hero McCain most often invokes is Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, a Progressive Republican, was a key figure in America's passage from a Jeffersonian republic to a Hamiltonian despotism. He embodied the late-19th- and early-20th-century vision in which the citizen is ...
Tell All, or Else by Sheldon Richman March 2, 2000 The Census Bureau wants you to tell it all sorts of things about yourself, but there's one thing it doesn't want to tell you: You may be punished if you disobey. You will search in vain through the census materials you receive in the mail for notice or details of that threat. The notification letter makes ...
Count Me Out by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2000 I got a letter from my friendly federal government the other day. It notified me that in about a week I will be mailed my U.S. Census 2000 form. Why they didn't just send the form instead of the notice, I can't fathom. But that's the least of it.
Ask Not by Sheldon Richman February 2, 2000 John McCain tells people he is the one presidential hopeful "who can inspire young people to commit themselves to causes greater than their own self-interest." I will resist wondering whether the cause McCain has in mind is, well, McCain. No doubt this standard line of McCain's is regarded as mere boilerplate, a trademark slogan no ...
Freedom and the 21st Century by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2000 Perhaps the ultimate indictment of the government's schools is that most people think year 2000 is the 2001st year and thus the start of a new century and millennium. This is not mere quibbling. Next time someone owes you five bucks, insist that he start counting from zero, as people ...