New Deal, Old Deal by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2007 It’s commonly held that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was a radical break with America’s past. Both fans and foes of Roosevelt embrace this position. Many libertarians join conservatives in believing that things were going satisfactorily in the United States until Roosevelt got his hands on power. Some take a slightly ...
What Do Citizens Owe Government? by James Bovard May 1, 2007 When politicians are not promising new benefits to citizens, they continually remind citizens what they owe the government. From their first years in government schools, children are indoctrinated with the notion that government provides them some grandiose benefit. This seed often produces a harvest of servility in later life. But few people stop and ...
That Horrible Income Gap by George Leef May 1, 2007 Karl Marx’s biggest selling point has always been his argument that workers are systematically underpaid under capitalism. They produce value and greedy capitalist owners cheat them out of it. Good economists have understood for centuries that in a free (and therefore competitive) labor market, it isn’t possible to underpay anyone for long. That fact, however, ...
What the Warfare State Really Costs by Thomas E. Woods Jr. May 1, 2007 Estimates of the cost of the Iraq war continue to escalate to levels well beyond what its optimistic architects once promised. Most notable, perhaps, has been the estimate of Columbia University’s Joseph Stiglitz, who, in a January 2006 paper with Harvard’s Linda Bilmes, put the full cost at around $2 trillion. ...
The Nanny State’s Road to Serfdom by Jeffrey A. Singer May 1, 2007 A reader wrote me about my article “The Slippery Slope of Nanny-State Politics,” which appeared in the last issue of Freedom Daily. The article derided the rise of the “nanny state” and its threat to our way of life as a free people. I had written that New York ...
Sophie Scholl: A Life of Moral Courage by Wendy McElroy May 1, 2007 The 2005 German film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (Die letzten Tage) depicts the anti-Nazi heroine Sophie Magdalena Scholl (May 9, 1921 February 22, 1943). Sophie and her brother, Hans, were leading members of a nonviolent resistance group called the White Rose. Five students in their early twenties formed the group in 1942 at the University of Munich. The ...
The Sham of the Padilla Trial by Jacob G. Hornberger April 30, 2007 Jury selection in the Jose Padilla case is now under way in federal district court in Miami, but the trial is nothing more than a sham. Why? Because no matter how the jury rules, Padilla is almost certain to remain incarcerated for a long time. If Padilla is convicted by the jury, the judge ...
Why Markets Are Dreaded by Tibor R. Machan April 27, 2007 In one of those vapid, in-house disputes often published in The New York Review of Books’s letters-to-the-editor sections, we can read about a disagreement among educational experts under the heading “Scandals in Higher Education: An Exchange” (4/26/07). Well, not much of a disagreement because none of the participants gives ...
Single-Day Registrations Now Available by Jacob G. Hornberger April 27, 2007 Because we have received many requests for daily registrations for our June 1-4 conference Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties, we have decided to open up the conference to per-day registrations. The new per-day registration fees will be as follows: Friday, June 1: $195 Saturday, June ...
The Lesson of Virginia Tech by Sheldon Richman April 25, 2007 The lesson from the horrors at Virginia Tech is that no one can really, fully delegate to another his right to and responsibility for self-defense. You may feel the municipal or campus police are looking out for you, but no police force can guarantee to be where you need it when ...
The Real Tragedy of Waco by Glenn Jacobs April 23, 2007 April 19 marked the 14-year anniversary of the BATF-FBI massacre of the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas. Some might say that the use of the word “massacre” is harsh, instead opting to call it a “tragedy.” After close examination of the events of April ...
Leading CEO to Speak at FFF Conference by Jacob G. Hornberger April 23, 2007 Note: Please forward this page to your friends. Richard Vague, one of the nations leading CEOs, has been added to the roster of speakers at The Future of Freedom Foundations upcoming conference "Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties." Mr. Vague joins 23 other outstanding libertarian, liberal, and conservative speakers who will address these two critical issues during our ...