Civil Liberties & Privacy

Takings: The Evils of Eminent Domain

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1995

The "takings clause" of the U.S. Constitution is the portion of the Fifth Amendment that says "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." It is one of the few parts of the Bill of Rights that authorizes the government to violate individual liberty, since under ...

Have We Abandoned Our Principles?

by Robert Chamberlain July 1, 1995

America was founded upon commonly held principles of right and wrong. Our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution recognize these principles and enumerate several of them. Among these principles is the acknowledgment that we, as individuals, have certain unalienable rights — namely the rights to life, liberty, and the ...

Demystifying the State

by Wendy McElroy July 1, 1995

Mystification is the process by which the commonplace is elevated to the level of the divine by those who have a vested interest in its unassailability. Government is a perfect example of mystification at work. Government is a group of individuals organized for the purpose of extracting wealth and exerting ...

Freedom through Encryption

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1995

When the history of the modern struggle for liberty is written, Philip Zimmermann will be celebrated as a true hero. To understand why, we must explore the issue of privacy in the information age. It is a story that should the thrill the heart of every lover of liberty. The government has always been able to read our mail. After ...

The Greatest Enemy

by Art Hoppe February 1, 1995

They're out to get me — the most relentless, implacable foe a human being ever had. They've been after me all my life. On the day I was born, they demanded to know who I was and where I was so that they could put me on their list. Their spies and now their huge computers have kept track of ...

Individualism and the Free Society, Part 2

by Nathaniel Branden January 1, 1995

Part 1 | Part 2 It was the United States of America, with its system of limited, constitutional government, that implemented the principle of capitalism-a free trade on a free market-to the greatest extent. In America, during the nineteenth century people's productive activities were for the most part left free of governmental regulations, controls, and restrictions; most thinkers ...

Individualism and the Free Society, Part 1

by Nathaniel Branden November 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 A political system is the expression of a code of ethics. Just as some form of statism or collectivism is the expression of the ethics of altruism, so individualism — as represented by laissez-faire capitalism — is the expression of the ethics of rational self-interest. In this chapter I propose to show why this is ...

Freedom, Virtue, and Responsibility, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Despite their good intentions, the proponents of the welfare-state, managed-economy way of life have ended up with results that are opposite from what they intended. The war on poverty was supposed to end poverty. It did not, and the situation is worse than when the war started some thirty years ...

Freedom, Virtue, and Responsibility, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The welfare state and the managed economy do more than destroy individual self-esteem. They also destroy hopes of improving one's life. Now, we know that money cannot buy happiness, but certainly the hopes of improving one's own economic well-being provide a stimulus to happiness. That is to say, if a ...

National Conflicts, Market Liberalism and Social Peace

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1994

For three years, civil war has caused massive death and destruction in the former Yugoslavia. Almost every day, the television evening news has broadcast pictures of devastating artillery bombardments, ruined towns and villages, and multitudes of killed and wounded men, women and children. Tens of thousands of people have been turned into refugees forced to leave their homes and belongings ...

Freedom, Virtue, and Responsibility, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 When the surgeon general of the United States, Joycelyn Elders, announced that drug legalization was an idea worth studying, the reaction among politicians, bureaucrats, conservatives, and even those on the political left was immediate. "Immoral!" "You favor drug abuse?" "Have you ever held a crack baby?" "You should resign!" Why do ...

A Warning from the Past

by Charles Adams March 1, 1994

In A.D. 476 Odovacar, a German commander in the Roman army, sacked Rome and took over the imperial throne. That date is usually cited as the end of the Roman Empire. As a political force, Rome did end about that time, but the spirit of Roman civilization had ...