Daily Articles

The Troops Don’t Support the Constitution

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 10, 2005

Every U.S. soldier takes an express and solemn oath to “support and defend the Constitution.” That oath, however, is a sham because the troops do not support or defend the Constitution. Instead, when it comes to war the troops follow another oath they take — to obey the orders of the ...

Profiting from Misfortune

by Sheldon Richman October 5, 2005

Amid the shrieks of price gouging as hurricanes ravaged the Gulf coast were a few voices of good economic sense. They correctly pointed out that when supplies of vital goods are disrupted, nothing matches the price system for restoring normalcy as quickly as possible. It does so by encouraging ...

West Pointers, Where Are You?

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 3, 2005

More than two years ago, I wrote a series of essays entitled “Obedience to Orders,” in which I suggested that graduates of the professional military academies were much more likely to blindly obey wrongful orders — and much less likely to stand up to their superiors in face of ...

The Federal Government Has Damaged Our Country

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2005

As the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, an increasing number of Americans are now questioning the wisdom of President Bush’s decision to invade. While the primary reason for people’s increased level of dissatisfaction is the number of U.S. troops killed and wounded, there are many other important reasons that Americans should be questioning not only the U.S. invasion ...

Africa Needs Freedom, Not “Aid”

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 2005

Politicians are never more dangerous than when they are thinking: “We’ve got to do something!” Take the last G8 meeting in Scotland. The rulers of the most advanced economic powers (and Russia, go figure) met with the intention of looking as though they were doing something to end poverty in Africa. They ...

Harebrained Pot and Wheat Decisions

by James Bovard October 1, 2005

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court, acting again like a gang that smoked too much bad weed, ruled that the federal government has the right to prohibit people from growing marijuana for medicinal purposes. The Court relied on an interpretation of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause that basically gave the feds unlimited control over any activity that Congress or federal ...

Lysander Spooner, Part 1

by Wendy McElroy October 1, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 The 19th-century individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker called Lysander Spooner “our Nestor,” a Greek name denoting “wisdom.” The 20th-century libertarian Murray Rothbard referred to Spooner as “the last of the great natural rights theorists ... the last of the Old Guard believers in natural rights.” Natural-rights or natural-law theory, as espoused by Spooner, is ...

Wal-Mart’s Not Coming to Town

by Gregory Bresiger October 1, 2005

Wal-Mart is not coming to my neighborhood. That’s because the powers that be of New York City recently said that Wal-Mart wasn’t wanted here. In fact, given the comments of our political and labor leaders, one would think Wal-Mart was a kind of disease. What are Wal-Mart’s sins? It has ...

Economics for the Citizen, Part 8

by Walter E. Williams October 1, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 Economic theory is broadly applicable. However, a society’s property-rights structure influences how the theory will manifest itself. It’s the same with the ...

Waging War on Carcinogens

by Rosalind Lacy MacLennan October 1, 2005

America’s War on “Carcinogens”: Reassessing the Use of Animal Tests to Predict Human Cancer Risk by the American Council on Science and Health (March 2005); $15.95. America’s War on “Carcinogens”: Reassessing the Use of Animal Tests to Predict Human Cancer Risk calls for medical researchers, journalists, and lawmakers to refocus and change the rules of engagement in the war ...

Freedom’s Fair-Weather Friends

by Sheldon Richman September 30, 2005

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, some members of Congress are talking about passing a national law against price gouging. One problem should stand in their way: there is no objective definition of “gouging.” Whatever the law says will therefore be arbitrary and unfair. The 20 states that forbid gouging ...

Leave New Orleans to Private Development

by Sheldon Richman September 26, 2005

In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of politics, when government fails, and fails spectacularly as it did with Hurricane Katrina, the only thing to do is give it gobs more money to make everything right. But when has government made anything right? Even when it seems to do something worthwhile, we soon discover ...