Daily Articles

Conservatism vs. Libertarianism

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 12, 2006

The Conservative: I’m a conservative. I believe in individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government, except for: 1. Social Security; 2. Medicare; 3. Medicaid; 4. Welfare; 5. Drug laws; 6. Public schooling; 7. Federal grants; 8. Economic regulations; 9. Minimum-wage laws and price controls; 10. Federal Reserve System; 11. Paper money; 12. Income taxation and the IRS; 13. Trade restrictions; 14. Immigration controls; 15. The postal monopoly; 16. Foreign aid; 17. ...

Bush’s Bogus Theory of Absolute Power

by James Bovard April 7, 2006

The Bush administration has a theory to explain why the Founding Fathers secretly intended for the president to have boundless power. Even though the new unitary executive theory is nowhere in the Constitution, White House officials continually invoke it to justify scorning federal law. The fact that the administration is getting away with this charade symbolizes how docile much ...

Not War, But an Imperial Venture

by Sheldon Richman April 3, 2006

President Bush, sticking to a script like a five-year-old clinging to a security blanket, insists that the United States can bring democracy to Iraq and other Middle East countries at the point of an American bayonet. So convinced is he of that, he has made death America’s best-known export. Not everyone is ...

Book Review: Attention Deficit Democracy

by Anthony Gregory April 3, 2006

Attention Deficit Democracy by James Bovard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 291 pages. “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” So says a popular bumper sticker. Indeed, those of us who have been paying attention to the political scene for years ...

The Trouble with Liberals

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2006

The trouble with liberals is twofold: They have a horrible blind spot with respect to moral principles and they have an abysmal understanding of economic principles. Of course, I’m referring to “liberals” in the corrupted “big-government” sense of the term rather than in the classical libertarian meaning of the ...

What Is the Enemy?

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2006

As libertarians, what should we view as the great institutional threat to liberty? The most common answer is socialism. But that is far too general to be helpful because it leaves unspecified what kind of socialism and in the service of whose interests. In one sense the answers to those questions are unimportant: any (state) socialism threatens freedom. (Socialism ...

The Fraudulent Meaning of Elections

by James Bovard April 1, 2006

Politicians strive to make Americans view elections as sacrosanct. Challenges to election results are portrayed as heresies that threaten to destroy the entire republic. After the 2004 presidential election, many Democrats went on the warpath over alleged voter fraud and manipulation in Ohio and elsewhere. The Constitution requires Congress to certify the Electoral College voters for each state before ...

Oil Profits and the “Gassy” Political Classes

by William L. Anderson April 1, 2006

In the wake of the twin behemoths, Katrina and Rita, gasoline prices went past $3 a gallon for the first time in U.S. history. Even accounting for inflation, the nation saw its highest prices ever at the pump. It was a made-to-order moment for the political classes in this country, and they did not disappoint, putting on a combination ...

The Disastrous World of the New York Subway, Part 3

by Gregory Bresiger April 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Government enterprise validates a kind of cult of failure, a cult that has stood human nature on its head and made incompetence a god. It is human nature to want to do well in anything, no less in business. Most owners risk much of their life’s savings to ...

American Democracy Indicted

by Anthony Gregory April 1, 2006

Attention Deficit Democracy by James Bovard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 291 pages. “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” So says a popular bumper sticker. Indeed, those of us who have been paying attention to the political scene for ...

A Free Market in Immigration

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 31, 2006

Once again, the federal government is proposing immigration “reforms” to address the immigration woes that confront our country. The proposals in Congress include extending a fortified “fence” (for some reason, government officials shy away from using the word “wall”) along the Southern border, criminalizing illegal residency, criminalizing assistance given ...

Bush Pledges More Mayhem in the Middle East

by Sheldon Richman March 31, 2006

Asked recently about his position on Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions, President Bush said, “I made it clear, and I’ll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel.” This statement brought precisely zero reaction from the public and the media. Do the American people fully appreciate ...