Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793–1880) by Wendy McElroy August 1, 2006 In 1853, Lucretia Mott described the Quaker women of the Massachusetts community into which she had been born. “Look at the heads of those women; they can mingle with men; they are not triflers; they have intelligent subjects of conversation.” Quakers believed that all people were equal before God and, so, every human being’s autonomy deserved equal respect. They ...
Piercing through Myths, Lies, and Stupidity by George Leef August 1, 2006 Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel (Hyperion 2006); 304 pages; $24.95. John Stossel, anchor of the ABC News program 20/20, is a rarity among the ranks of American media personalities. He’s a skeptic when it comes to everything except freedom. He even calls himself a libertarian. Over the years, ...
Conservatives and Immigration Control by Bart Frazier July 31, 2006 To most people, the idea of open borders seems like a radical idea. And of the people most vehemently opposed to it these days, conservatives top the list. But if a run-of-the-mill conservative were to take the philosophical underpinnings of his politics into account, he would find that he too ...
The Moral Rot of Middle East Intervention by Jacob G. Hornberger July 28, 2006 Of one thing we can be certain after decades of the U.S. government’s interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East: it has not brought peace to that part of the world. Another thing we can be certain of: the federal government’s interventionist foreign policy is at the center of the ...
Not World War III by Sheldon Richman July 26, 2006 When a war breaks out somewhere, two sound principles for civilized people are: (1) demand an immediate ceasefire and, failing that, (2) keep the war contained — do not broaden it, do not join in. We can gauge the civility of the Bush administration’s neoconservative boosters by the fact that they ...
Bush Countenances Middle East Violence by Sheldon Richman July 21, 2006 The administration of George W. Bush has done some contemptible things in its five and a half years, but what it’s doing now in the Middle East could be a new low. Innocent civilians are dying in Lebanon and Israel, but the administration’s position is that the time is ...
Government the Exploiter, Not Protector by Sheldon Richman July 14, 2006 If you begin with an incorrect premise, you are bound to arrive at bad conclusions. Nowhere is this more true than in matters of government. The debates over the “war on terror,” the Iraqi occupation, and the Bush administration’s casual approach to civil liberties are premised on the idea that the ...
Theodore Roosevelt Is No One to Emulate by Sheldon Richman July 7, 2006 We shouldn’t be surprised that President George W. Bush’s Svengali, Karl Rove, is an admirer of Theodore Roosevelt. TR is hot these days. He made the cover of Time magazine, heralding a series of hagiographic articles, including Rove’s, that make him out to be the first modern American president. In Time’s view, that ...
Libertarianism Is the Key to Our Future by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2006 Why do I remain convinced that the American people will return to their libertarian heritage, especially given the continued trend toward socialism and interventionism in Washington, D.C.? There are three reasons: freedom, morality, and pragmatism. Freedom Almost everyone prizes the concept of freedom. Yet relatively few people in history have realized it. Throughout recorded history, most people have had to live ...
Jane Jacobs: The Spontaneity of Cities by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2006 Lovers of freedom, cities, and spontaneous social processes lost a great champion April 25 when Jane Jacobs died at age 89. She was truly a remarkable woman. With no more than a high-school diploma, but also a keen eye for what other people miss and the ability to turn a phrase, ...
Operation Founding Fathers by James Bovard July 1, 2006 Few subjects generate more official lies than the U.S. government’s devotion to spreading democracy abroad. Iraq has been the largest most recent geyser of such deceits. In order to understand future U.S. government messianic democracy efforts, it is worthwhile to review the opportunism with respect to representative government in Iraq. In a late February 2003 Washington speech, George W. Bush ...
Housing Socialism, Part 2 by Gregory Bresiger July 1, 2006 Part 1 | Part 2 The desire for self-improvement is not the mentality behind price-control laws and rent-control laws. Behind them is the mentality of social engineering. It is a mentality subscribed to by those who want the government to micro-manage prices, wages, and even the level of ...