Daily Articles

Mr. President, the CIA Is Already Talking to Syria

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 2, 2007

President Bush has decided that the U.S. government is now going to talk to Syria. The reason the president has steadfastly refused to talk to Syria before now is that Syria, he has repeatedly emphasized, is a state sponsor of terrorism. There is one part of all this, however, that is quite befuddling: The U.S. government ...

Why Germans Supported Hitler, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 It has long intrigued me why the German people supported Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. After all, every schoolchild in America is taught that Hitler and his Nazi cohorts were the very epitome of evil. How could ordinary German citizens support people who were so obviously monstrous in nature? Standing against the Nazi ...

The Flimflam of Income-Tax Denial

by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2007

My recent three-part series in Freedom Daily, “Beware Income-Tax Casuistry” (August–October 2006), provoked some vigorous objection. Unsurprisingly, members of what is known as the tax-protester movement, but which should be called the tax-denial movement, took issue with every aspect of the articles — and more. The movement doesn’t merely object to the income tax on moral, or natural-rights, ...

Ford’s Legacy: Lawless Government

by James Bovard March 1, 2007

The death of former President Gerald Ford unleashed a tidal wave of bathos and political bunkum across the land. Ford was far more exalted in death than he had been during his time in office. Slate’s Timothy Noah critically noted, Within the narrow confines of Permanent Washington — the journalists, lobbyists, and congressional lifers who are the city’s avatars ...

An Open Letter to High-School Students: Pay Attention to Government

by Bart Frazier March 1, 2007

To every high-school student in this country between the ages of 15 and 18, this letter is to you. If there is ever something that you should take the time to learn about, it is government. Why? — you ask. If your idea of government is endless babbling by old congressional ...

Funding Leviathan, Part 1

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 The federal leviathan is fed by taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, during the federal government’s most recent fiscal year (FY 2006), which ended on September 30, 2006, total revenues were approximately $2.403 trillion. Most of this revenue was, of course, raised as a result of taxes confiscated from the American ...

Public-Access TV: Fascism in Action

by Scott McPherson March 1, 2007

Imagine a public-access aisle at your local grocery store. The store would provide the goods it can profit from on other aisles, but there would be a special aisle where certain merchandise would be offered because the local government required it to be offered. Local residents would go to city council meetings and produce petitions signed by their neighbors saying ...

The Active Authoritarianism of Teddy Roosevelt

by George Leef March 1, 2007

Bully Boy by Jim Powell (Crown Forum, 2006); 329 pages, $27.50. Most historians rank Teddy Roosevelt as one of America’s great or near-great presidents. That is mainly because he is regarded as a “progressive” — a trustbuster, a proponent of government regulation of the ...

The Pentagon’s Power to Arrest, Torture, and Execute Americans

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 28, 2007

Also see: “The Critical Dilemma Facing Pro-War Libertarians” “It Can't Happen Here” “The Islamo-Fascist Rationale for Abandoning Liberty” The president and the Pentagon now wield the omnipotent power to arrest, torture, and execute any American they label an “enemy combatant.” It is impossible to overstate the significance of this power. ...

Stop Them!

by Sheldon Richman February 26, 2007

What is going on in America? The Bush administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate says the situation is so bad in Iraq that the term “civil war” is inadequate to describe it. A government inspector confirms what we already knew: that serious doubts about Iraq’s putative weapons of mass destruction and ...

Imperial Hopefuls

by Sheldon Richman February 22, 2007

As the parade of presidential wannabes grows longer, the people paying attention this early are probably asking themselves, “Can I picture so and so as president?” This is a bad question on many levels. Politics, and presidential politics most especially, is little more than theater. The candidate who can create the right ...

Know When to Fold ’Em

by Sheldon Richman February 17, 2007

Hawks such as Sen. John McCain who oppose Senate resolutions against the so-called troop surge in Iraq make a pernicious argument. Such a resolution “is basically a vote of no confidence in the men and women we are sending over there,” McCain said. “We’re saying, ‘We’re ...