Daily Articles

Iraqi Death by Political Abstraction

by Sheldon Richman June 5, 2006

Try as they might, apologists for the war in Iraq wont be convincing when they insist that, at worst, the Haditha incident (or was it a mishap?) was the unfortunate work of a few bad Marines. It was something much worse. When men trained to kill on a battlefield this wasnt the Salvation Army, after all are ordered into civilian ...

The Cowardice of the Conservative

by Scott McPherson June 2, 2006

Conservatives are an interesting bunch. In a desperate attempt to differentiate themselves from liberals, they like to mock folks on the Left while talking as if they themselves were in agreement with libertarians. “I just vote Republican because they’re the lesser of two evils” is a common excuse for their continued support of that ...

Independent Migrants Have Rights Too

by Sheldon Richman June 2, 2006

You’d never know it from the recent public discussion, but the people disparaged as “illegal aliens” — in fact they are independent migrants — have the same natural rights to life, liberty, and property that Americans have. As long as they violate no one else’s natural rights, they should be free ...

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 ...