Thinking about Foreign Policy by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2006 The reason there is so much sloppy thinking about foreign policy among libertarians (not to mention nearly everyone else) is that most people don’t know how to approach the subject. You can see this whenever someone uses analogies such as the bully on a playground or the madman with a baby ...
The Failed Attempt to Leash the Dogs of War by Bart Frazier December 1, 2006 Of the many powers that government is granted, none has more potential for disaster than the power to wage war. Not only does warfare cost a country in terms of lost lives, it also has detrimental effects on the economy and society itself. In order to keep the country out of senseless and unjust ...
Misplaced Nostalgia by Sheldon Richman November 17, 2006 Before we get too nostalgic about the foreign-policy prowess of the George H.W. Bush administration, we should remind ourselves of what happened from 1989 through 1992. I understand that, compared to the bunch running things now, nearly anyone would look good. But I sense almost a giddiness about the supposed ...
Emergencies: The Breeding Ground of Tyranny by William L. Anderson November 1, 2006 When the New York Times recently reported that the Bush administration was routinely tracking international and domestic financial transactions, the president said he was doing these things under emergency powers granted to him by Congress. While many commentators have openly questioned the legality of Bush’s actions, there are deeper questions to be asked than simply “Is this legal?” Indeed, as ...
The Superpower Myth by Sheldon Richman October 18, 2006 What does it mean to be the world’s only superpower? Like Gulliver in Lilliput, the U.S. government is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now faces the emergence of two new nuclear powers in North Korea and Iran. There seems to be nothing President Bush can do about it. He sent ...
Why Do They Hate Us? by Jacob G. Hornberger August 9, 2006 You’ll recall that immediately after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. officials declared that the attacks had been motivated by the terrorists’ hatred for America’s “freedom and values.” That refrain produced the “war on terrorism” and, more recently, the “war on radical Islamo-fascism.” Nonsense, said libertarians. The anger and hatred that Arabs ...
Government the Exploiter, Not Protector by Sheldon Richman July 14, 2006 If you begin with an incorrect premise, you are bound to arrive at bad conclusions. Nowhere is this more true than in matters of government. The debates over the “war on terror,” the Iraqi occupation, and the Bush administration’s casual approach to civil liberties are premised on the idea that the ...
Americans Should Be “Anti-American” by Sheldon Richman June 21, 2006 “The Iraq war has also made anti-Americanism respectable again, as it was during the Cold War but had not been since the demise of the Soviet Union.” Those words come from Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, writing in the June 18 issue of the Washington Post. In his article ...
Killing in the Name of Democracy by James Bovard June 1, 2006 President George W. Bush perpetually invokes the goal of spreading democracy to sanctify his foreign policy. Unfortunately, he is only the latest in a string of presidents who cloaked aggression in idealistic rhetoric. Killing in the name of democracy has a long and sordid history. The U.S. government’s first experience with forcibly spreading democracy came in the wake of the ...
Monsters, Inc. by Samuel Bostaph June 1, 2006 In 2001, an animated film from Pixar Animation Studios was released and became extremely popular with both adults and children. Monsters, Inc. is set in the city of Monstropolis, where all monsters live. A corporation that gives the title to the movie employs scarers, monsters who venture out of the city every night to enter the human world through ...
U.S. Hypocrisy in Cuba by Jacob G. Hornberger May 26, 2006 If there was ever a charge against the U.S. government on which most foreigners would agree, it is the charge of hypocrisy. Most Americans continue to view their federal government as a beloved parent, one who never lies to them; who takes care of them and gives them “freedom” in the form of ...
Moussaoui and Foreign-Policy Unrealities by Jacob G. Hornberger May 22, 2006 Writing about the Zacarias Moussaoui case in the Washington Times, Suzanne Fields displays one of the major maladies that typify conservatives — their propensity to create their own realities with respect to foreign policy in order to avoid confronting the harsh consequences of U.S. foreign policy, especially in the ...