Daily Articles

The FISA Farce

by James Bovard January 9, 2006

President Bush proudly announced last month that he is violating federal law. He declared that in 2002 he ordered the National Security Agency to begin conducting warrantless wiretaps and email intercepts on Americans. He asserted that the wiretaps would continue, regardless of the law. Bush claims that he must ignore the law because the secret federal court created to authorize ...

School-Choice Flaws

by Sheldon Richman January 6, 2006

Some advocates of what is euphemistically called “school choice” argue that their reform would be a crucial step along the road to the separation of school and state. Some of us have dissented. Knowing how government works, we’ve had a hunch that vouchers and tuition tax credits would most likely ...

Leaving It All on the Field (Not in the Halls of Congress)

by Adam B. Summers January 4, 2006

Congress certainly has had its plate full lately. Important things are going on in the nation and around the world. A New York Times report that President Bush signed a secret order authorizing the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without obtaining warrants has sparked controversy, Iraqis have ...

Book Review: Perilous Times

by George Leef January 2, 2006

Perilous Times — Free Speech in Wartime by Geoffrey R. Stone (Norton, 2004); 730 pages; $35. If it is true to say, as Randolph Bourne did, that war is the health of the state, it is equally true to say that war is the sickness of individual liberty. The ...

The Separation of Education and State

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2006

Americans, like most people around the world, have become so accustomed to the role that government plays in educating children that the idea of separating education from the state usually comes as a complete shock to them. While everyone is aware of the ever-growing problems associated with public schooling, the ...

Who Made the State the Ultimate Parent?

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2006

When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already.” — Adolf Hitler If you believe that parents have a fundamental, natural right (recognized in the Constitution) to raise ...

Free Speech on the Ropes

by James Bovard January 1, 2006

The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech.” The Founding Fathers could have done nothing to make it clearer that the government has no right to gag the American people. However, in recent years, the Constitution is proving little or no barrier ...

Crippling Competition, Part 2

by Scott McPherson January 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence. —Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead A truly free society ...

Democracy versus Freedom

by Jarret B. Wollstein January 1, 2006

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and conflict; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. James Madison, fourth president of the United States and primary Framer of the U.S. Constitution Politicians and ...

Speaking of Inflation

by Stu Pritchard January 1, 2006

Discussions about inflation remind me of a drink I bought in a Shanghai bar in 1948. I kept tossing rubber-banded stacks of paper money, Chinese National Currency (CNC), onto the bar. Finally, the bartender shrugged and said, “That’s enough.” I once told that story to Dr. Norbert Einstein, an economist in Seattle and a distant cousin to Albert. Standing ...

Book Review: Wilson’s War

by George Leef January 1, 2006

Wilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin & World War II by Jim Powell (Crown Forum, 2005); 352 pages; $27.50. Although most conventional liberal historians, blinded by their adulation for politicians who embrace “progressive” causes, continue to ...

More Drug-War Victims

by Sheldon Richman December 28, 2005

Opponents of the so-called war on drugs (it’s a war on people) have long cautioned that enforcement of victimless-crime laws is by nature a mockery of justice. We have a vivid example in Cory Maye. You haven’t heard of Cory Maye? Few people have, despite the best efforts of blogger-journalist Radley Balko (TheAgitator.com). Maye, 25, ...