Freedom Daily Archive

Bright Days Ahead for the Second Amendment?

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 2000

THE SICKENING spectacle of hoodlum gangs molesting women in New York City’s Central Park in broad daylight while the police stood by has elicited volumes of criticism. But two key facts have been left out of the commentary: First, the police have no legal duty to come to any particular person’s ...

How the State Became Immaculate, Part 2

by James Bovard September 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Hegel's deified state doctrine found vigorous proponents in Britain. According to Oxford professor T.H. Green, It is not supreme coercive power, simply as such, but supreme coercive power exercised in a certain way and for certain ends, that makes a State, viz., exercised according to law, written or customary, and ...

Rooting Out the Trade in Human Misery

by Andy Falkof September 1, 2000

WHEN DEATH is the result of smuggling immigrants across borders, is the root of the problem the smugglers or the laws that make immigration and human transport crimes? British customs officers recently stumbled upon a poorly ventilated Dutch truck containing the bodies of 58 suffocated Chinese immigrants who had tried to enter England illegally. People all over the world condemned ...

Strategies from the Past: Boycott, Part 1

by Wendy McElroy September 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 The current disillusionment with politicians — which may be Clinton’s true legacy — will be positive only if it becomes disillusionment with the political means itself. Otherwise, people will continue to look primarily to the “state” for solutions instead of to “society.” State vs. society The German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer explained the difference between these two ...

Morals and the Welfare State, Part 1

by F.A. Harper September 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 TO MANY PERSONS, the welfare state has become a symbol of morality and righteousness. This makes those who favor the welfare state appear to be the true architects of a better world; those who oppose it, immoral rascals who might be expected to rob banks, or ...

Book Review: Power and Prosperity

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 2000

Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships by Mancur Olson (New York: Basic Books, 2000); 233 pages; $28. MANCUR OLSON, who died in 1998 at the age of 62, was one of the most insightful economic analysts of the political process. His most original and important work was The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of ...

The Constitution: Liberties of the People and Powers of Government, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 The most radical experiment in history is the Constitution of the United States of America. Throughout history, people had accepted the commonly held notion that government’s powers over the citizenry were supreme. In 1787, however, for the first time ever, the American people announced to the world that the liberties of the people were ...

Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century: A Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 3

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 The New York Times: In a recent public opinion poll, 71 percent of the respondents said that the protection of the existing Social Security system was important in evaluating a presidential candidate. Yet you seem to be calling for the abolition of ...

The Bankrupt Anti-Gun Movement

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2000

IF THE CHARACTER of the anti-gun-rights forces was in doubt before the Million Mom March last spring, there is no longer any doubt. The statements of the leading participants vividly revealed them as demagogues who seek only to play on blind emotion in order to push an agenda that would violate a basic individual right: the right to defend ...

How the State Became Immaculate, Part 1

by James Bovard August 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The founding fathers took a dim view of claims of the unlimited beneficence of government. George Washington declared, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force.” John Adams wrote in 1772: “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free ...

The Black Hole of Higher Education

by George Leef August 1, 2000

ONE OF THE GREAT growth industries in America in the second half of the 20th century was higher education. Prior to World War II, there were only 1.5 million students enrolled in some 1,700 colleges and universities. Spending per student was about $450. By the late 1990s, the student population had grown to 14.4 million ...

Crime Creation

by Richard O. Rowland August 1, 2000

THE HAWAII TAX on cigarettes is the highest in the nation; $1 per package, $10 per carton. That’s after the federal government applies its tax. If you want to display your protest to a mindless drivel of government laws and rules, one way to do it is to smoke. So, cigarette smoking is appealing to teenagers, many of whom are ...