Freedom Daily Archive

If Liberty Mattered — Once More, a Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 5

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 1996

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 The Candidate: Ladies and gentlemen of the press, now that it has become clear who my two leading opponents will be in this presidential race, I feel that my decision ...

What’s So Great about Democracy?

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1996

In this election season, it might be good to ask, What's so great about democracy? There is almost a religious fervor in some people when they talk about the democratic process. I don't get it. I do see an advantage in voting over violence in the selection of officeholders. When succession is determined violently, innocent people get caught in the crossfire. ...

Minimum-Wage Law as Political Racketeering

by James Bovard July 1, 1996

President Clinton and many congressmen are hankering to raise the federal minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 an hour. The minimum wage epitomizes government pseudo-paternalism, and Clinton's proposal should receive harsh condemnations from anyone who has looked at the history of minimum-wage policies. The minimum wage symbolizes the dishonest paternalism of today's welfare state. The state of Oregon, in a ...

Lessons from Your Fax Machine

by Karen Selick July 1, 1996

Have you ever heard someone ask: "How did we ever get along in the days before we had fax machines?" Think back. Ten years ago, most people had never heard of fax machines. They had just been invented. They were enormous clunky things, costing thousands of dollars, producing fading copies on that awful, curling thermal paper. Their usefulness was ...

Whose Bread I Eat — His Song I Sing

by J.G. McDaniel M.D. July 1, 1996

I remember, as a small boy in knee britches, going with my father to hear an address given by the Honorable Stephen Pace, then congressman from the old Georgia 12th District. It was on the banks of the Ocmulgee River. There was a barbecue, and citizens, especially farmers, from all the counties gathered. This was before the first World ...

Book Review: Making Economic Sense

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 1996

Making Economic Sense by Murray N. Rothbard (Auburn, Ala.: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1995); 435 pages. Murray Rothbard was an exceptional interdisciplinary scholar. He was a master of economic theory (and, himself, one of the major 20th-century contributors to Austrian economics), an original political theorist defending human liberty, and a wide-ranging multisubject historian. His death last year, in 1995, was ...

The Failure of the Republican “Revolution,” Part 5

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 1996

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 It would be difficult to find a better example of socialist central planning than public schooling. The system is run by a board of government officials, ...

Free Trade, Peace, and Goodwill Among Nations: The Sesquicentennial of the Triumph of Free Trade

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1996

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is justly considered one of the intellectual fountainheads of economic liberty. With a brilliant combination of logic and historical example, Smith demonstrated, like few others had up to his day, that governmental controls, regulations, and restrictions on economic freedom were the fundamental causes of ...

Fending Off Government

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1996

President Clinton's State of the Union address had two basic messages: 1) the era of big government is over, and 2) we can't go back to the time when "people fended for themselves." He doesn't really mean the era of big government is over. He's up for reelection. His wife (I assume this is not merely guilt by conjugal association) ...

Kill a Boy, Get a Medal

by James Bovard June 1, 1996

On March 1, 1996, the U.S. Marshals Service gave its highest award for valor to five U.S. marshals involved in the 1992 Ruby Ridge, Idaho, shoot-out, including the marshal who shot a 14-year-old boy in the back and killed him, and another marshal who started a firefight by shooting the boy's dog without provocation. The valor award announcement symbolizes ...

Source of Rights

by Frank Chodorov June 1, 1996

The axiom of what is often called "individualism" is that every person has certain inalienable rights. For example, "individualism" holds that property as such obviously has no rights; there is only the inherent right of a person to his honestly acquired property. . . . The axiom of socialism ...

Book Review: Classics in Austrian Economics

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1996

Classics in Austrian Economics: A Sampling in the History of a Tradition edited by Israel M. Kirzner (London: William Pickering, 1994); three volumes; $300. The Austrian school of economics began in 1871 with the publication of Principles of Economics by Carl Menger. In the 1860s, while working in the Austrian ministry of prices, Menger came to realize that the actual way ...