Send Chainsaws to AID by James Bovard June 1, 2001 THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION is earnestly seeking to reform scores of federal programs after the scandal-ridden Clinton years. But sometimes there is no substitute for a good chainsaw massacre. Such is the case with foreign aid. The U.S. is now giving $15 billion a year in foreign aid — economic and military ...
The Free-Soil Movement, Part 2 by Wendy McElroy June 1, 2001 Part 1 |Part 2 The key issue around which the free-soil debate revolved was slavery. Specifically, the question was whether slavery would be extended into the territories that were expected to seek statehood. Both anti-slavery farmers and slave-owners had been migrating into the territories for years. Each group was eager to acquire the political clout that came from having a ...
Book Review: The Burden of Bad Ideas by George Leef June 1, 2001 The Burden of Bad Ideas by Heather Mac Donald (Chicago, Ill.: Ivan R. Dee, 2000); 242 pages; $26. WE HAVE ALL HAD our share of bad ideas. Most of the time, we discard them before acting on them, but when we do act on a bad idea, we usually realize quickly that it was ...
Book Review: Regulation without the State by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2001 Regulation without the State ... The Debate Continues by John Blundell and Colin Robinson (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2000); 93 pages; $15. ALMOST 40 YEARS AGO, free-market economist and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman published a short book entitled Capitalism and Freedom (1962). At a time during which Keynesian economics and the popularity of the interventionist-welfare state were still on the ...
The Declaration and the Constitution by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2001 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION was one of the most remarkable periods in history, not so much for the military battles that were fought but for the ideas and principles that were expressed during that time. Foremost among the documents expressing those ideas and principles are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which are inexorably intertwined. Throughout history, people have viewed ...
What Makes an American? by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2001 WHAT MAKES SOMEONE an American as opposed to, say, an Englishman, or a Frenchman, or a German, or an Italian? Within these other countries, the answers are fairly simple. For example, a German is someone who can demonstrate that his ancestors were German-speakers originally from those areas in which Germans have ...
Kill the Death Tax by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2001 ARE WE SUPPOSED to be impressed that some of the country’s richest men want the government to continue taxing estates? I don’t see why their opinion on this matter is worth more than anyone else’s. After all, just because someone is good at making money, that doesn’t make him an authority ...
Dictatorship out of Thin Air by James Bovard May 1, 2001 FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS turn bureaucrats into dictators who need not care a whit about public health. Instead, federal agencies blindly pursue both power and publicity. The result is one absurdity after another — and scant attention for the real health threats that Americans face. On July 12, 1999, the Justice Department announced that it was suing Toyota for $58 billion ...
The Free-Soil Movement, Part 1 by Wendy McElroy May 1, 2001 Part 1 | Part 2 In 1837, in order to encourage a westward migration of the poor and unemployed from the industrial East, the journalist Horace Greeley proclaimed, “Go West, young man, go forth into the Country.” The vast public lands in the West were seen as a safety valve for the increasing labor unrest of Eastern cities. Twenty-five years ...
Cause of Corrupt Government by Clarence Manion May 1, 2001 A PRECISION TOOL designed for one purpose will be entirely ineffective — nay, it may even be destroyed — in an attempt to use it for another purpose. Every housewife knows that you cannot use an electric dishwasher as a garbage disposal unit. Yet the same American people who know so ...
Book Review: Government: Whose Obedient Servant? by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2001 Government: Whose Obedient Servant? A Primer in Public Choice by Gordon Tullock, Arthur Seldon, and Gordon L. Brady (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2000); 184 pages; $15. IN SPITE OF THE COLOSSAL DISASTER of socialism throughout the world and the corrupt inefficiencies and distortions caused by the interventionist-welfare state, virtually every country in the world clings to various elements of these ...
Yahoo! We Have Free Speech by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2001 A RECENT RULING by a French Court in a lawsuit brought against Yahoo.com reflects the dramatically different way in which Americans and Europeans view the importance of individual liberty. The case involved Yahoo’s online auctions of Nazi memorabilia. In France, as in Germany, such sales constitute a severe criminal offense. While ...