Daily Articles

Stand Your Ground Makes Sense

by Benedict D. LaRosa August 2, 2013

The July 13, 2013, acquittal of George Zimmerman in the February 2012 self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin has brought a flood of criticism against Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. Despite the fact that this law was not a factor in the Zimmerman case, opponents are using the incident as a pretext to lobby for repeal of that statute. More than ...

How to Help Fast-Food Workers

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2013

Doubling the minimum wage may seem like a good way to help fast-food workers, but it would hurt them instead. So what should we do? We must sweep away the government-created barriers to income earning, barriers that protect established businesses from competition and rob the most vulnerable people of options. This week, fast-food workers have engaged in 24-hour strikes throughout ...

How I Came to Reject the Welfare State, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2013

Part 1 | Part 2 According to a Census Bureau announcement during the 1950s, I was growing up in the poorest city in the United States. That was Laredo, Texas, a city that borders the Rio Grande. Even though I was only a kid, that announcement struck me hard. Here I was, actually living in the poorest ...

Government Is the Problem

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2013

Last spring Barack Obama told the graduating class of Ohio State University, Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems.… They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is ...

Where’s the Body Count from Shootings by Police?

by James Bovard August 1, 2013

Barack Obama has made curtailing Americans’ right to own firearms one of his highest priorities. Earlier this year, he appealed to “all the Americans who are counting on us to keep them safe from harm.” He also declared, “If there is even one life we can save, we’ve got an obligation to try.” But some perils are not worth ...

The Outrage of Stop-and-Frisk

by David S. D'Amato August 1, 2013

As the subject of an ongoing trial in federal court, Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al., the controversial police policy known as “stop and frisk” is receiving more attention than perhaps at any other moment in its history. For most of that time — and indeed it is difficult to know exactly how long the ...

The Zero Interest Option Could Wreck the Economy

by Gregory Bresiger August 1, 2013

Economic history is primed to repeat in the nastiest of ways unless the government stops distorting the price of something we use every day. Every product, good, or service has a price, which is essential to rational decision-making. We use prices every day as vital data that guide us. Without true prices, prices not distorted by government fiat, we would ...

Should the Purchasing Power of Money Be Stabilized?

by Alexander William Salter August 1, 2013

Economists have long debated the costs and benefits of stabilizing the purchasing power of money. Today, most First World countries’ central banks either pursue the stabilization of purchasing power as a primary goal, as in the case of the European Central Bank (technically, the stabilization of the rate of change of money’s purchasing power, by means of an inflation ...

Book Review: The Moral Case for a Free Economy

by Laurence M. Vance August 1, 2013

Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by Robert Sirico (Regnery Publishing, 2012), 213 pages. Critics of the free market assert that it fails the underprivileged, leads to income inequality, exploits the poor, and is at times downright cruel. They charge its defenders with being motivated by greed, selfishness, and materialism, and making a god out ...

Book Review: Opponent of Empire

by Martin Morse Wooster August 1, 2013

Rome’s Last Citizen:  The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press, 2012),  311 pages. A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty / is worth a whole eternity in bondage. — Joseph Addison, Cato Some of us know that the Cato Institute is named for Cato’s Letters, a series of essays ...

Snowden and the Surveillance State

by Tim Kelly July 31, 2013

When I first found out that the National Security Agency (NSA) was tracking my telephone and Internet activity, I must confess, a part of me felt flattered. Sure, it’s creepy, illegal, and unconstitutional, but on a certain level the idea that a supersecret government agency supposedly responsible for protecting the country from terrorists and other evildoers would bother with creating ...

El Mal del Estado de la Seguridad Nacional

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 31, 2013

Las dos palabras más importantes en la vida de los americanos durante los últimos 60 años han sido “seguridad nacional”. El término ha transformado la sociedad americana a peor. Ha pervertido sus principios y valores. Ha atrofiado las conciencias. Ha alterado el orden constitucional. Y ha producido un gobierno, democráticamente elegido, que ejerce poderes totalitarios. Ahora vivimos en un país ...