Politics

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 ...

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 ...

An Echo, Not a Choice

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2000

Must the Republicans' abandon every semblance of principle in order to save us from a Gore presidency? In the minds of the GOP leaders, the answer seems to be yes. Apparently, a decision has been made that victory is so essential that the party will say anything to avoid offending anyone. ...

No One Is Qualified to be President

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2000

The Democrats' chief argument against George W. Bush is that he's not qualified to be president. They're right He's not qualified. But neither is Al Gore. Or Dick Cheney. Or Joseph Lieberman. No one is qualified to be president. No one. This is not a statement born of cynicism. It's cold fact. How ...

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 ...

Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century: A Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 Ladies and gentlemen of the press, America is entering the 21st century as still one of the greatest nations in the world. We have had a booming economy for most of the last two decades that has created tens of millions of ...

Imagining Freedom for the 21st Century: A Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 The threshold of the 21st century, the American people are once again faced with having to choose a president of the United States. A hundred years ago, when the 20th century began, the issue of who was ...

Education and the Presidential Race

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000

THE REPUBLICANS, as the old saying goes, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Gov. George W. Bush demonstrated that truism when he clinched the presidential nomination and told the nation that education would be at the center of his campaign. Over and over he has said that a Bush presidency would “reform education” and make sure every ...

Of, By, and For the People?

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000

We live by myths. For example, most of us believe we live in a representative, constitutional republic (sometimes erroneously called a democracy). Everyone learned this at school, and the belief follows most people throughout life. If things are not exactly to their liking, they fall back on the ...

Bush’s Social Security Sham

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2000

GOP presidential hopeful George W. Bush wants to let working people invest some of the money now taken by the Social Security payroll tax. The principle is sound. Money taken by the tax is not invested, but consumed. It pays benefits to current retirees, with anything left over ...

Reno’s Disgrace

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2000

Everyone-regardless of his views on Juan Miguel Gonzalez's claim to his son-should be appalled at how Attorney General Janet Reno carried out the removal of Elián Gonzalez from the home of his great-uncle in Miami. The sight of agents of the U.S. government, clad in military-style assault gear, armed with automatic weapons, breaking into a private home in the early ...

The Hero’s Hero

by Sheldon Richman March 2, 2000

We can judge a person by his heroes. John McCain would no doubt agree. Revealingly, the hero McCain most often invokes is Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, a Progressive Republican, was a key figure in America's passage from a Jeffersonian republic to a Hamiltonian despotism. He embodied the late-19th- and early-20th-century vision in which the citizen is ...