TGIF: The Cynical U.S. Policy on Chemical Weapons by Sheldon Richman September 6, 2013 “I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line.” That was President Obama’s response this week to those who believe he wants to attack Syria in order to defend his own credibility. Secretary of State John Kerry said the same thing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They were referring to the 88-year-old
Who Should Pay for the Education of Children? by Laurence M. Vance September 5, 2013 Who but parents are responsible for deciding for their children the food they eat, the clothes they wear, the toys they play with, the church they attend, the company they keep, the music they listen to, and the programs they watch on television? We may not like some of the decisions that parents make for their children. Parents sometimes ...
We Must Not Be the World’s Policeman by Sheldon Richman September 4, 2013 Even if everything Secretary of State John Kerry says about chemical weapons in Syria were true, the evidence would prove only that Bashar al-Assad committed crimes against civilians. It would not prove that the U.S. government has either the moral or legal authority to commit acts of war. These issues must be kept separate. We have reason to be ...
The Libertarian Angle: Syria by Future of Freedom Foundation September 4, 2013 Jacob Hornberger and Sheldon Richman discuss the Syria. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly.
How I Came to Reject the Welfare State, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 2013 Part 1| Part 2 During the part of my life that I was a welfare statist, I never gave any thought to how the government raised its money. I just assumed that the government operated like a business — that it earned its money and then figured out ways to spend it. Thus I could ...
It’s Not Edward Snowden Who Betrayed Us by Sheldon Richman September 1, 2013 When you cut through the fog, the NSA controversy is about whether we should trust people with institutional power. Edward Snowden’s courageous exposure of massive secret surveillance separates those who say yes from those who say, “Hell no!” The trusting attitude can be found among progressives and conservatives alike (with notable exceptions), and even some who have identified themselves as ...
The Sordid History of IRS Political Abuse by James Bovard September 1, 2013 The power to tax has long conferred the power to destroy one’s political opponents. When the latest IRS politicization scandal erupted in May, many commentators talked as if the abuses were a novelty in American history. But, as David Burnham noted in his masterful 1990 book, A Law Unto Itself: The IRS and the Abuse of Power, “In almost ...
U.S. Government to Blame for Somalia’s Misery by Scott Horton September 1, 2013 At the beginning of May the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), a U.S.- and U.K.-government-financed organization that monitors various food crises around the world, released a new report detailing the horrific consequences of the Somali famine of 2011. According to FEWS NET, “An estimated 4.6 percent of the total population and 10 percent of children under 5 died ...
Gabriel Kolko Revisited, Part 1: Kolko at Home by Joseph R. Stromberg September 1, 2013 Part 1 | Part 2 An earlier generation of libertarians was interested in Gabriel Kolko, a historian of the Left. Who was he? Born in 1932 in Paterson, NJ, historian Gabriel Kolko studied at Kent State, the University of Wisconsin, and Harvard University (PhD: 1962). From 1970 until his retirement he taught history at York University in Toronto, ...
America’s Surveillance State by Wendy McElroy September 1, 2013 J. Edgar Hoover and the Anti-Interventionists: FBI Political Surveillance and the Rise of the Domestic Security State, 1939-1945, by Douglas M. Charles (Ohio State University Press, 2007), 197 pages. The domestic surveillance state is sometimes called the electronic police state. Those in political power use law enforcement to closely monitor the opinions and peaceful behavior of citizens in order ...
Manufacturing Terrorists by Matthew Harwood September 1, 2013 The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism by Trevor Aaronson (Ig Publishing, 2013), 272 pages. Predators stalk Muslim-American communities across the nation today. They talk of brotherhood and of sacrifice. They talk of jihad and the duty of fellow Muslims to come to the defense of the faithful. Often they prey on the most vulnerable within ...
TGIF: Obama and King by Sheldon Richman August 30, 2013 Portuguese The irony was striking. There was President Barack Obama on Wednesday, standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s remarkable “I Have a Dream” speech. The irony lay not in Obama’s banality, but in the fact that as he spoke, his war council was planning ...