Freedom Daily Archive

How Brown v. Board of Education Throttled Black Schooling

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2004

The Law of Unintended Consequences is always in force. Given the inherent uncertainty of the future and the interconnectedness of things, any action is subject to the likelihood that some effects will be unexpected. Among these, some will be welcome, others distasteful. There is, in this law, a practical argument for ...

FBI Blunders and the First World Trade Center Bombing

by James Bovard August 1, 2004

As Americans continue trying to understand how the government failed to stop the 9/11 hijack conspiracy, important clues can be garnered from examining the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993. This bombing — the most economically destructive terrorist attack ever to occur in the United States up to that time — was partly ...

The Colonial Venture of Ireland, Part 4

by Wendy McElroy August 1, 2004

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 In the North, treatment of Catholics deteriorated as one of the most infamous measures in Irish history was passed — the Special Powers Act of 1922. Catholic-rights advocate Bernadette Devlin explained, It gave the authorities power to arrest people without a warrant on suspicion “of acting or ...

The Irish Soldiers of Mexico, Part 2

by Michael Hogan August 1, 2004

Part 1 | Part 2 Most of those who had settled in America in the 18th and early 19th centuries had no real sense of national identity. Those in Virginia considered themselves Virginians, those in Texas, Texans or “Texicans,” and those from Maine, “Down Easters.” Allegiances were territorial rather than nationalistic. When the victorious American army finally entered Mexico ...

The Bill of Rights: Freedom of Speech

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2004

When the Constitution was being proposed to our American ancestors in 1787, many people expressed the concern that the document failed to specify the fundamental rights of the people that would be immune from assault by federal officials. The response to that argument was that since the Constitution expressly restricted the government to specified, enumerated powers, and since those powers ...

Why Do Libertarians Ignore the Therapeutic State?

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2004

It’s a truism that libertarians care about liberty. For libertarians, liberty belongs to the individual. Groups are free only in the sense that each member is free. A group free to coerce its members is, in the libertarian worldview, a contradiction in terms. This position is straightforward, and it ought to be uncontroversial. Facts and ...

Torture as Due Process

by James Bovard July 1, 2004

After 9/11, the word of the president was supposedly the only protection that the rights and liberties of the American people needed. After 9/11, President Bush granted himself unlimited, unchecked power over anyone in the world suspected of being a terrorist. The Supreme Court, in a series of rulings on June ...

What a Republican Majority Has Not Meant

by Laurence M. Vance July 1, 2004

It has been more than a year now since the Republicans gained an absolute majority in Congress and the White House. The road to this majority began in the third year of Bill Clintons first term. The Republicans gained complete control of the 104th Congress (19951997), held on to control in the 105th Congress (19971999), and remained in power ...

The Colonial Venture of Ireland, Part 3

by Wendy McElroy July 1, 2004

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 In 1912, Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith introduced a “Government of Ireland Bill” that attempted to establish an Irish parliament with a popularly elected lower house and an appointed senate. A small delegation of Irish was to remain at Westminster to represent Ireland’s interest in the ...

The Irish Soldiers of Mexico, Part 1

by Michael Hogan July 1, 2004

Part 1 | Part 2 One of the least-known stories of the Irish who came to America in the 1840s is that of the Irish battalion that fought on the Mexican side in the U.S.-Mexico War of 1846–1848. They came to Mexico and died, some gloriously in combat, others ignominiously on the gallows. United under a green banner, they ...

The Nationalization of the American People

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2004

With military manpower shortages arising out of the war in Iraq, there is talk in the air that the federal government might reinstitute the draft, most likely sometime after the November election. Such a prospect should cause every American to reflect not only on the moral and philosophical relationship of the ...

Did Business Want Campaign-Finance “Reform”?

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2004

It didnt take long for the sponsors of the latest campaign-finance reform (translation: free-speech prohibitions) to complain that their law is being circumvented. Senators John McCain (Republicrat) and Russell Feingold (Demoblican) are infuriated that private groups are using (gasp!) unregulated money to influence an election and their law doesnt seem to be able to stop it. The McCain-Feingold law, also ...