Do Hadithans Hate Us for Our Freedoms? by Jacob G. Hornberger June 2, 2006 Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. officials announced that the terrorists were motivated by anger and hatred for American “freedoms and values.” In other words, the terrorists hated the First Amendment and rock and roll and, therefore, decided to attack our country. When asked whether U.S. foreign policy might have anything ...
Liberty, Power, and the Constitution by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2006 A few years ago, I was delivering a lecture on the Constitution to an assembly consisting of a couple hundred high-school students. I made the following observation, which threw the students into an uproar: “The First Amendment to the Constitution does not give people the right to free speech.” Immediately, I was pummeled by criticisms from all across the ...
Libertarian Class Analysis by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2006 Say the words “class analysis” or “class conflict” and most people will think of Karl Marx. The idea that there are irreconcilable classes, their conflict inherent in the nature of things, is one of the signatures of Marxism. That being the case, people who want nothing to do with Marxism quite naturally want nothing to do with class analysis. So ...
Killing in the Name of Democracy by James Bovard June 1, 2006 President George W. Bush perpetually invokes the goal of spreading democracy to sanctify his foreign policy. Unfortunately, he is only the latest in a string of presidents who cloaked aggression in idealistic rhetoric. Killing in the name of democracy has a long and sordid history. The U.S. government’s first experience with forcibly spreading democracy came in the wake of the ...
Housing Socialism, Part 1 by Gregory Bresiger June 1, 2006 Part 1 | Part 2 In every country examined, the introduction and continuance of rent control/restriction has done much more harm than good in rental housing markets — let alone the economy at large — by perpetuating shortages, encouraging immobility, swamping consumer preferences, fostering dilapidation of housing ...
Public Schools Have Flunked Out by James Ervin Norwood June 1, 2006 Public schools are brain dead and on life support; so let’s pull the plug on them, give them a decent funeral, and let better alternatives take root and flourish. Education is what we must save and regenerate, not an obsolete proven flop that has been in a persistent counterproductive condition for decades. The time has come to slaughter a sacred ...
Monsters, Inc. by Samuel Bostaph June 1, 2006 In 2001, an animated film from Pixar Animation Studios was released and became extremely popular with both adults and children. Monsters, Inc. is set in the city of Monstropolis, where all monsters live. A corporation that gives the title to the movie employs scarers, monsters who venture out of the city every night to enter the human world through ...
For and Against Libertarianism: A Debate, Part 2 by George Leef June 1, 2006 Part 1 | Part 2 Libertarianism: For and Against by Craig Duncan and Tibor Machan (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); 167 pages. In the second part of Libertarianism: For and Against, Duncan goes first, presenting his main case, which he calls “Democratic Liberalism: The Politics of Dignity.” Here, he fleshes out the “dignity” ...
U.S. Hypocrisy in Cuba by Jacob G. Hornberger May 26, 2006 If there was ever a charge against the U.S. government on which most foreigners would agree, it is the charge of hypocrisy. Most Americans continue to view their federal government as a beloved parent, one who never lies to them; who takes care of them and gives them “freedom” in the form of ...
Moussaoui and Foreign-Policy Unrealities by Jacob G. Hornberger May 22, 2006 Writing about the Zacarias Moussaoui case in the Washington Times, Suzanne Fields displays one of the major maladies that typify conservatives — their propensity to create their own realities with respect to foreign policy in order to avoid confronting the harsh consequences of U.S. foreign policy, especially in the ...
Fear Is the Coin of the Realm by Jacob G. Hornberger May 15, 2006 Uh, oh! A new study reveals that “fears that the deadly strain of bird flu would move through Africa and Europe in flocks of wild birds have so far proven unfounded....” That means one less fear that the feds can use to frighten grown-up American men and women as an excuse ...
Hearing Moussaoui by Sheldon Richman May 15, 2006 You had to read the papers very closely to see what Zacarias Moussaoui, who got life imprisonment after pleading guilty to conspiring in the 9/11 attacks, had to say at his sentencing. Most newspapers either buried his statement or left it out of the story altogether. Curious, isn’t it? Don’t the newspapers ...