Freedom Daily Archive

The Drug War and Terrorism

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2002

AMERICANS NO DOUBTwould be distressed to learn that the U.S. government helped finance the terrorist attacks that killed so many people in New York and Washington. It’s not such a far-fetched thought. According to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, terrorist organizations are financed in part by profits from trading in drugs. “The illegal drug trade is ...

Gun-Ban Shenanigans at the UN

by James Bovard January 1, 2002

LAST JULY 9, the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects convened in New York. To celebrate the event, the UN and several member governments held public bonfires of guns. The mere sight of gun bonfires was supposed to somehow convince people that the United Nations would protect them. ...

Declare War before Waging War, Part 1

by Doug Bandow January 1, 2002

Part 1 | Part 2 LIKE MOST CRISES, the shocking attack on the World Trade Center caused a rush to government for protection. People seemed willing to accept almost any new restriction on liberty or new spending program in the name of fighting terrorism. Few seem willing to criticize the president should he decide to expand the war to Indonesia, ...

Book Review: Fool’s Errands

by Richard M. Ebeling January 1, 2002

Fool’s Errands: America’s Recent Encounters with Nation Building by Gary T. Dempsey with Roger W. Fontaine (Washington, D. C.: Cato Institute, 2001); 224 pages; $19.95 THE CONCEPT OF “nation building” became widely used in the 1960s as a growing number of former European colonies around the world were given independence. The concept was most frequently applied in the context of Africa. ...

Recovering Our Bearings

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2001

CHRISTMASTIME ALWAYS PROVIDES a good time both for reflection and for looking forward. While we usually do this as individuals and families, this year is an especially good time to do so as a nation. How did America start, how has it changed over the years, and where are we heading? Our country began as the ...

If Only Freedom Had a Price

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 2001

IF ONLY FREEDOM HAD A PRICE, we would know what each individual thought it was worth. Each individual could express his own valuation and judgment of what he would pay to maintain or increase his freedom and what he would have to receive in exchange to give up some or all ...

Self-Inflicted Violence

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2001

IN OUR RUSH justice for the perpetrators of the horrors of September 11, we seem to have forgotten another kind of violence that is ready to befall America: the self-inflicted violence of an open-ended, comprehensive, and essentially secret global war conducted by the U.S. government against an enemy so amorphous it apparently cannot be ...

The Hopped-Up DEA Chief

by James Bovard December 1, 2001

“I WOULD HOPE that we are judged by the lives that are touched and the hope that we give America,” declared Asa Hutchinson, Bush’s new Drug Enforcement Agency chief during a press conference on his first day in his new job. Considering that the DEA seeks to maximize the number of people that it sends to prison each year ...

Healing the Health-Care System

by Lawrence D. Wilson December 1, 2001

HISTORY CAN OFTEN yield insights into our dilemmas. Health care is no exception. The Founders of America envisioned a health-care system based on principles of the dignity and liberty of every person. They were: 1. A right to work. England’s system of guilds and licenses kept many people out of the healing arts. America would allow anyone to become a doctor ...

Book Review: Ludwig von Mises

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 2001

Ludwig von Mises: The Man and His Economics by Israel M. Kirzner (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2001); 226 pages; $24.95. LUDWIG VON MISES was, without a doubt, one of the most important economists of the 20th century. Every textbook on comparative economic systems, for example, will point out that it was Mises who initiated the famous debate over economic calculation under ...

Remembering the Constitution

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2001

CONSTITUTION DAY — September 17 — came and passed without fanfare. That is the day that commemorates the signing of one of the two most important documents in our nation's history. (The other one, of course, is the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate on the Fourth of July.) In the midst of a crisis in which Congress has vested ...

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2001

AT THE CLOSE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the Constitution was bringing into existence. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Regardless of one’s judgment concerning the type of government that the Constitution brought into existence in 1787, no one can deny that it was truly the most unusual and ...