Daily Articles

Liberalism Is the Enemy of the Poor

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2010

I was a liberal back in my late 20s. I was practicing law in my hometown of Laredo, Texas, where I was serving on the board of trustees for the local Legal Aid Society, a government agency that provided free legal services for the poor. I also served as the local representative for the ACLU. I believed that government’s ...

Capitalism and the Free Market, Part 1

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 Writing in the Guardian last January under the headline “Caribbean Communism v. Capitalism,” respected journalist Stephen Kinzer began his article like this (https://tinyurl.com/y8wfrxb): Visiting unhappy Cuba is especially thought-provoking for anyone familiar with its unhappy neighbours. Cubans live difficult lives and have much to complain about. So do Jamaicans, Dominicans, Haitians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and ...

Bringing Freedom and Prosperity to Afghanistan

by James Bovard May 1, 2010

The Obama administration is seeking to rechristen the Afghan debacle it inherited from the Bush administration. Obama’s efforts to legitimize the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan simply ignore the previous record of American actions in that nation. But the past debacles ensure the failure of Obama’s ramped-up interventions. Afghanistan was recently judged to be the second most corrupt nation on Earth. ...

Unnatural Law, Natural Tyranny, Part 2

by William L. Anderson May 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 While the founding of the United States (and its legal system based on the English common law) was carried out by people who believed strongly in natural law, nonetheless the seeds of dissent were already being sown in England. Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher who also had a strong effect on ...

Lessons for America from Germany’s Hyperinflation, Part 1

by Jim Powell May 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 Many Americans may be inclined to assume that Germans were barbaric because they supported Hitler, and whatever happened there couldn’t possibly apply to the United States. But the Germans have had much more in common with Americans than we might realize. Germans were educated and industrious. Germany had world-class universities. Germans long led the world ...

The Anti-Fed Revolution

by Anthony Gregory May 1, 2010

End the Fed by Ron Paul (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009), 212 pages. Through his 2008 presidential campaign, Ron Paul managed to make monetary policy a national political issue. For nearly a century it had been a relatively obscure topic, and throughout my lifetime respectable opinion considered it a fringe inclination even to be interested in it. ...

Why Do Daily Kos and Alternet Support a Racist Program?

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 28, 2010

With the possible exception of the war on drugs and public (i.e., government) schools, it would be difficult to find a government program that is more damaging to inner-city poor people, especially blacks, than the minimum wage. Yet, liberals, who have longed claimed to love the poor, needy, and disadvantaged, especially racial minorities, continue to steadfastly support this vicious ...

Why Judges Can’t Free Torture Victims from Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington April 26, 2010

Last December, I wrote about the case of Saeed Hatim, a Yemeni in Guantánamo whose habeas corpus petition had been granted by Judge Ricardo Urbina. At the time, Judge Urbina’s unclassified opinion had not been made publicly available, so all I had to go on were Hatim’s own statements at Guantánamo. In publicly available documents, he told ...

Is a Real Anti-Government Movement Forming?

by Sheldon Richman April 23, 2010

Finally some good news. From the Associated Press: “Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don't trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve America's ills, the survey found.... About half say they ...

The Income Tax and the Welfare-Warfare State

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 23, 2010

On April 15, 2010, Jacob Hornberger gave the following speech at an event sponsored by the Young Americans for Liberty at Purdue University.

The Slippery Definition of Extremism

by James Bovard April 20, 2010

Americans are once again hearing of the perils of extremism. But the definition of this offense is slippier than a politician’s campaign promise. The definition of extremism has continually been amended to permit government policies that few sober people previously advocated. Prior to 2000, anyone who asserted that the Census Bureau was deeply involved with the roundup of Japanese-Americans for ...

With Regrets, Judge Allows Indefinite Detention at Guantánamo of a Medic

by Andy Worthington April 19, 2010

On March 25, as I explained in a recent article, “Guantánamo and Habeas Corpus: The Torture Victim and the Taliban Recruit,” Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the District Court in Washington, D.C., denied the habeas corpus petition of Mukhtar al-Warafi, a Yemeni who was 27 years old when he was seized in ...