Freedom Daily Archive

The Clinton Administration’s War on Privacy

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1996

The Clinton administration, self-proclaimed champion of civil liberties and small government, is a big fraud. President Clinton's Department of Justice, it was recently revealed, is wiretapping more and more American citizens each year. It is increasing the number of federal wiretaps by more than 30 percent annually. What's more, the administration is bulking up the budgets of the FBI and ...

Drug War Dementia

by James Bovard November 1, 1996

H. L. Mencken observed in 1918: "A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion . . . as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them." In recent years, politicians have found few better ways to frighten voters than with the specter of drugs. The government's war on drug users is annually jailing hundreds ...

The Big Lie

by Vin Suprynowicz November 1, 1996

If the failed and unconstitutional "war on drugs" really needed another nail in its coffin, the 60-page report "Illicit Drugs and Crime" by Bruce L. Benson and David W. Rasmussen, professors of economics at Florida State University, should do the job. After studying crime rates in Florida, which poured vast resources into a beefed-up drug war in the years 1984-89, ...

Book Review: The Corrosion of Charity

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1996

The Corrosion of Charity by Robert Whelan (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1996); 116 pages; £7.00. When the first suggestions were made for "downsizing" federal welfare spending after the 1994 Congressional elections, it was not surprising that various special-interest groups that either receive welfare payments in one form or another or that serve as the administrative or bureaucratic conduits for dispersing ...

The Failure of the Republican “Revolution,” Part 9

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1996

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 The Republican "revolution" was doomed from the start. The reason is due to the fatal flaw in the moral, political, and economic philosophy of the Republican ...

If Liberty Mattered — Once More, a Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 8

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1996

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 The Washington Times: In your previous press conference, you argued for the reversal of America's military commitments around the world. You said that you would notify our global allies that ...

The State Threat to Computer Privacy

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 1996

The Clinton administration is proceeding apace with a plan to force each of us to give the government a spare key to our houses and offices. Well, that's not literally what they want. They want a spare key to our filing cabinets. That may be cryptic, but in time the reader ...

The Cartelization of the American Workforce

by James Bovard October 1, 1996

Freedom to work is increasingly being taken hostage by government licensing boards. The American economy is degenerating into a guild system, as government doles out privileges to one group of self-proclaimed professionals after another. Government licensing restrictions prohibit millions of Americans from practicing the occupation of their choice. Over eight hundred professions now require a government license to practice — ...

Legalized Immorality

by Clarence Manion October 1, 1996

It must be remembered that 95 percent of the peace, order, and welfare existing in human society is always produced by the conscientious practice of man-to-man justice and person-to-person charity. When any part of this important domain of personal virtue is transferred to government, that part is automatically released from the restraints of morality and ...

Book Review: Human Action

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1996

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics by Ludwig von Mises (Irvington-on Hudson, N.Y.: The Foundation for Economic Education, 4th revised edition, 1996); 906 pages; $49.95. On September 14, 1949, Yale University Press released a major new work — Human Action by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. The following week, in his regular Newsweek column, Henry Hazlitt referred to the ...

The Failure of the Republican “Revolution,” Part 8

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1996

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 During the first few weeks of the Republican "revolution," Republicans were talking like libertarians. "It's time to dismantle FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society," they ...

If Liberty Mattered — Once More, a Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 7

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1996

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 The Wall Street Journal: Mr. Candidate, in your last answer, you said that you opposed Robert Dole's proposal for housing vouchers as a substitute for government-provided public housing. Yet, isn't ...