Regulation Policy & Welfare

A-Scalping We Van Gogh

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1998

Besides Monica, the other person who's captured attention in Washington, D.C., these days is a troubled man who killed himself more than a hundred years ago. Until January 4, the National Gallery of Art is exhibiting more than 70 paintings by Vincent van Gogh on loan from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum. The ...

Treating Us like Children

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1998

It's getting harder to imagine a Republican keeping a straight face while proclaiming the GOP to be the party of limited government and personal liberty. The latest reason? The Republican-controlled Senate recently voted 90-10 to outlaw gambling over the Internet. The prohibition, tagged onto an appropriations bill, would impose a penalty of three months in prison and a $500 fine ...

Dictatorship of Gadflies

by James Bovard November 1, 1998

In any catalog of late 20th-century dementia, the historic-preservation movement will take an honored place. A movement that did much to educate the public on the value of historic buildings in the 1960s and 1970s has long since been replaced by "hysterical preservationism." Preservationists have "progressed" from targeting specific ...

The Legalization of Prostitution

by James Bovard September 1, 1998

Prostitution has long been illegal in the vast majority of the United States. Unfortunately, laws against prostitution often bring out the worst among the nation's law-enforcement agencies — and pose a growing threat to public health. As fear of the spread of AIDS rises, the legalization of prostitution offers ...

Our Corrupting Welfare State

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 1998

Champions of the free society have long warned that the welfare state-in which the government does for people what they ought to do for themselves-has a corrosive effect on the character of human beings. There is no better evidence of this than what people have come to expect from what we mistakenly call "health ...

The Growing Farce of Fair Housing

by James Bovard July 1, 1998

In his masterpiece The Totalitarian Temptation, French socialist Jean-Franois Revel wrote, "There is a growing trend in the West to discount freedom as compared to justice." This trend is clear from the type of moral arrogance that congressmen and bureaucrats show in suppressing freedom in ...

Coerced Morality

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 1998

To relieve the suffering in the drought-stricken counties of Texas, Congress passed an appropriations bill, but it was vetoed by the president. In his veto message, the president stated: "I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and ...

No Third Way

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1998

In his State of the Union address last winter, President Clinton declared that under his enlightened leadership, the United States had found the much sought-after "third way" between laissez-faire capitalism and socialism. The remark was little noticed, but it was astounding nonetheless. One might have thought that the quest for the elusive third way had been dropped with the ...

The Antitrust Absurdity

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1998

The Federal Trade Commission has aimed its antitrust cannon at Intel Corp., maker of the microprocessor used in 90 percent of personal computers. The FTC charges Intel with refusing to provide information about its chips to certain computer makers with which it has legal disputes. At first, it ...

The So-Called Right to Strike

by George Leef June 1, 1998

In several of the highly publicized strikes in recent years, including the strikes against Caterpillar and the Detroit newspapers, company management continued operations during the strike by hiring permanent replacement workers. Permanent replacements are hired not just for the duration of the strike but to continue on after the strike ...

One Entrepreneur Is Worth a Million Consumer Advocates

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1998

When someone finds fault with absolutely everything you do, you might begin to wonder who's really got the problem. The same is true with an economic system. Predictably, the tired old school of carps led by Ralph Nader is condemning the mergers that have been announced recently, including CitiCorp ...

To Create Order, Remove the Planner

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1998

Which came first, the chicken of economics or the egg of economic action? Did the discipline of economics precede the object of its interest? The obvious answer is no. To say yes would be like saying that astronomy preceded the planets and stars or that before Newton, apples didn't fall from trees. Yet, there are people who speak as though ...