Eric Holder: Patron Saint of Trigger-Happy Cops by James Bovard November 1, 2014 Attorney General Eric Holder received a tidal wave of laudatory media coverage for his visit to Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of a local white policeman’s killing an 18-year-old black man. Holder assured the people of Missouri, “Our investigation into this matter will be full, it will be fair, and it will be independent.” But Holder’s own record belies his ...
Politicians Ignore the Looming Debt Iceberg by George Leef November 1, 2014 We libertarians are often accused of “worshiping” the Constitution, but that charge is false. Although we don’t care one bit for the “living Constitution” theory that leads only to the expansion of state power, it does not follow that we think every idea in the written Constitution is ideal. The document is flawed, as many Americans, the Anti-Federalists, argued ...
Uniting Constitutional Protection for Economic and Social Liberties, Part 1: Substantive Due Process and Unenumerated Rights by Steven Horwitz November 1, 2014 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 We libertarians like to distinguish ourselves from our friends on the Right and Left by the fact that we care equally about both economic liberties and social/civil liberties. For libertarians the right to engage in contract and exchange with other consenting adults is just as important ...
Reining In Out-of-Control Government by David S. D'Amato November 1, 2014 The Classical Liberal Constitution by Richard A. Epstein (Harvard University Press 2014), 701 pages. In Book II of his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke says “that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” A towering figure in the Enlightenment, Locke is often called the father of classical ...
A Libertarian Historian’s Masterpiece on the Civil War by Anthony Gregory November 1, 2014 Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War, 2nd ed. by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel (Open Court 2013), 421 pages. Not many volumes advance a radically revisionist thesis while maintaining proper respect for the mainstream historical literature. To do so with a topic as exhaustively explored as the American Civil War warrants special recognition. Jeff ...
TGIF: Nothing Is More Local than the Individual by Sheldon Richman October 31, 2014 On Tuesday the voters of the state in which I dwell, Arkansas, will be asked to vote yes or no on this: A proposed amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to provide that, effective July 1, 2015, the manufacture, sale, distribution and transportation of intoxicating liquors is lawful within the entire geographic area of each and every county of this state; ...
The Calling: How Cronyism Worsens Income Inequality (and Freed Markets Reduce It) by Steven Horwitz October 30, 2014 I recently gave an introductory Public Choice talk sponsored by Students for Liberty at the University of Ottawa. The next speaker was my friend Anne Rathbone Bradley, who was Skyping in from Washington. Anne gave a terrific talk about cronyism and rent-seeking that nicely complemented many of the points I’d made. But one of the side issues she raised ...
How Profit Benefits the Public by Richard Parsons October 30, 2014 Portuguese I’ve heard, like you have, about corporate greed. The profit motive, we are told, is evil and causes the little people to be trampled. Formal studies show that people perceive that profit is negatively associated with social value for specific companies and whole industries (example — that “evil” oil industry). This is probably no surprise, ...
The Austrian Economist Who Should Have Received the Nobel Prize by Richard M. Ebeling October 29, 2014 On October 13th, the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics was announced in Stockholm, Sweden, with French economist, Jean Tirole, the recipient for his work on developing models to better assist governments in regulating private enterprise. A couple of weeks earlier, Reuters news agency had reported that the Austrian School economist, Israel M. Kirzner, was on the short list for ...
Abolish the Income Tax and IRS by Sheldon Richman October 28, 2014 For some time now we’ve lived with the scourge of civil asset forfeiture, under which the police can seize a person’s property on the mere suspicion it was used in a crime and without having to charge the owner with an offense. Since the authorities have no burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the burden of proving ...
An Individualistic Foreign Policy by Laurence M. Vance October 28, 2014 Two Americans were killed this past summer fighting for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in its ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Both were young men, and both were U.S. citizens. One had dual citizenship and the other joined the Israeli army after visiting the country in 2012. It turns out that there is a long ...
The Libertarian Angle: Separating School & State by Future of Freedom Foundation October 27, 2014 FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: why need to end the state's involvement in the education of our children. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.