Freedom Daily Archive

Welfare State Morality

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2001

AS A COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE, President Bush wants to give federal aid to faith-based organizations. His plan has drawn attacks from both leaders on the religious Right and civil libertarians on the Left. Religious leaders object to Bush’s plan on the ground that it will lead to governmental interference with religious organizations. The point they make ...

The Disunited States of Europe: The Politics of Power and Privilege, Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 FOR SIX DAYS, during December 6-12, 2000, the 15 member-nations of the European Union (EU) met in Nice, France, for a conference that was meant to set the direction and structure for the organization well into the 21st century. On the EU’s agenda were: (a) plans for expanding the European Union to include many of the ...

The Rule of Law, R.I.P.

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2001

THERE IS LITTLE LEFT of the rule of law in the United States of America. To be sure, things are worse elsewhere, but that gives no comfort. We live under a regime in which the traditional features of the rule of law are largely absent. No one claims to be against the rule of law. Quite the contrary. But most ...

The Clinton Regime’s Final Bosh

by James Bovard April 1, 2001

“WE HAVE A NEW SENSE OF optimism in America.... America has come back under his regime,” declared White House press spokesman Jake Siewert at the final White House briefing of Clinton’s presidency. Siewert recognized his gaffe and quickly repeated himself, substituting the word “administration” for “regime.” But actually, the word “regime” is far more accurate, at least insofar as ...

FDR — The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Part 12

by Ralph Raico April 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Table of Contents In granting official diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union ...

Book Review: Revolutionary Language

by George Leef April 1, 2001

Revolutionary Language by David C. Calderwood (Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse.com, Inc., 1999); 324 pages; $13.95. AN IMPORTANT but little-known battle between the forces of statism and the forces of liberty of the early 1990s pitted the “law-enforcement” community and national security paranoiacs against one man who happened to believe that people ought to be ...

Book Review: Basic Economics

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2001

Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell (New York: Basic Books, 2000); 366 pages; $30. WHEN ADAM SMITH completed his criticisms of mercantilism, the 18th-century system of government planning and control, in The Wealth of Nations, he expressed a deep pessimism that the free-trade ideal that he had defended, instead of the regulated economy, would ever be ...

So Much for Compassionate Conservatism

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2001

DURING THE CONTROVERSY over Linda Chavezs appointment as secretary of labor, President Bush squandered an excellent opportunity to show some compassionate conservatism toward the tens of thousands of undocumented workers who have risked their lives to live and work in the United States. In the 1960s, I grew up on a farm on the Rio Grande outside of Laredo, Texas, ...

The Drug War’s Assault on Liberty

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2001

ROBERT DOWNEY JR. is a perfect example of the war on drug’s tremendous assault on liberty. Downey is the famous Hollywood actor who has a drug problem. To punish him for being a drug addict, the state has arrested him, prosecuted him, incarcerated him, released him, and arrested him anew. The state won’t leave ...

The Disunited States of Europe: The Politics of Power and Privilege, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 The corrosive effects that may occur from a spirit of political and economic nationalism were understood long before the disastrous consequences experienced as a result of them in the 20th century. In 1759, in his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith warned against the danger residing within any strongly held nationalist ...

The Chavez Tragedy

by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2001

PRESIDENT BUSH’S first choice for secretary of labor, Linda Chavez, was forced to withdraw when it was learned that 10 years earlier a Guatemalan woman who was then in the United States illegally lived in her home. Chavez caused herself trouble by saying she did not know until later that the woman was an “illegal alien.” Then she conceded ...

The Brookings Loony List

by James Bovard March 1, 2001

FANS OF LEVIATHAN received a gift a few days before last Christmas from the Brookings Institution, Washington’s most respected liberal think tank. Brookings’s Paul Light polled 450 political scientists and historians to come up with a list of “Government’s Greatest Achievements of the Past Half Century.” Light has done some excellent work in the past but succumbed to his enthusiasm ...