Freedom Daily Archive

Foreign Policy in One Lesson

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2003

“The art of economics,” Henry Hazlitt wrote in his classic, Economics in One Lesson, “consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” This sensible principle has attained the status of Great Truth among ...

Kosovo Déjà Vu

by James Bovard July 1, 2003

As the world looks on at the growing mess in post-war Iraq, it is time to recall the U.S. government’s bombing campaign against Serbia. There are many similarities to the recent campaign in Iraq. President Bill Clinton’s war against Serbia epitomized his moralism, his arrogance, his refusal to respect law, and his fixation on proving his virtue by using ...

The Drug War Helps Terrorists

by Scott McPherson July 1, 2003

The U.S. government has become quite accustomed over the years to orchestrating world events to fit its own agenda. In our name, the government keeps American troops in more than half the countries of the globe, openly supports brutal regimes, and uses its intelligence agencies to manipulate the policies of foreign governments. But no matter how hard it tries, ...

The Abolitionist Adventure, Part 1

by Wendy McElroy July 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 “Resolved, that the compact which exists between the North and the South is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell — involving both parties in atrocious criminality — and should be immediately annulled.” This resolution, passed by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, was written by the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. ...

Book Review: To Destroy a City

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2003

To Destroy a City: Strategic Bombing and Its Human Consequences in World War II by Hermann Knell (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2003); 373 pages; $32.50. On the night of July 27, 1943, 728 Allied bombers arrived over the German city of Hamburg at one o’clock in the morning. Ten thousand tons of high explosives and incendiary bombs were dropped on ...

The Rot at the Center of the Empire

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2003

The announcement that the U.S. government had relied on fake and false evidence in the attempt to secure approval of its invasion of Iraq was, by and large, met by a collective yawn from the American people, especially the members of Congress. Its just one more example of the depths of moral depravity to which our nation has fallen. Think ...

War and the Bankruptcy of the Bush Administration

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2003

The war on terrorism and the war on Iraq have become the defining characteristics of the Bush administration and the Republican Party in general. Indeed, without the current war hysteria, President Bush and the Republicans have nothing to stand for and run on in next year’s congressional and presidential elections. Think back to August 2001, just a few weeks before ...

Lying about War

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2003

Can we believe the government? For some people, there is no pretense of objectivity about the question. Republicans have no problem doubting the word of a Democrat president, and Democrats are skeptical about Republican chief executives. But that’s politics. For others, it’s a blasphemous question no matter who’s in office. Some would ...

Vietnam Redux: All Power to Lying Politicians

by James Bovard June 1, 2003

Americans are once again dying overseas because politicians have dragged the nation into an unnecessary war. Once the U.S. military invaded Iraq, Bushs approval ratings shot up through the roof. As American blood was flowing, most Americans approved of Bushs conduct. And yet it is precisely when a politicians approval is highest when his power is greatest that the greatest ...

Health-Care Socialism

by Scott McPherson June 1, 2003

Some ideas die hard. Among the most resilient is the Utopian belief that health care could be cheap, free, and available to all, if only we’d let the government take care of it. It was in the spirit of reviving this tragically unwise socialist idea that former president Bill Clinton and Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) addressed separate audiences last ...

Why Socialism Is the People’s Choice

by James Ostrowski June 1, 2003

Why is socialism more popular than capitalism? We have had 150 years to dissect socialism in theory. We have had 100 years to see socialism in action. Socialism, extensive government control over the economy, is a disaster in theory and a disaster in practice. The superiority of capitalism over socialism has been amply demonstrated by Ludwig von Mises, F.A. ...

Book Review: The Mind and the Market

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2003

The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought by Jerry Z. Muller (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002); 487pages; $30. In the 1920s and 1930s, the well-known Italian classical-liberal historian Guglielmo Ferrero attempted to explain the reasons for the social disruptions and civil wars that European society had gone through from the time of the French Revolution in 1789. ...