Daily Articles

Tsunami Aid: Not Theirs to Give

by Sheldon Richman January 7, 2005

The devastating earthquake-induced tidal waves in Asia are the latest reminders that Mother Nature can be a mass killer. It’s worth contemplating that the societies that interfere most with nature — the rich, market-oriented industrial societies — are the least vulnerable to her ravages. That’s not what the environmentalists ...

Why Trust in Social Security?

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 3, 2005

Isn’t a central argument among those who argue for the continuation of America’s premier socialist program, Social Security, that Americans cannot be trusted to voluntarily take care of the needs of their elderly parents? Let’s set aside all the nonsense about “I put it in and therefore I have a right to ...

The Bill of Rights: Trial by Jury

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2005

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part as follows: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.... Trial by jury is one of the essential prerequisites of a free society. As our ...

What Is Living and What Is Dead in Classical Liberalism

by Charles K. Rowley January 1, 2005

This paper was presented at The Future of Freedom Foundations five-year anniversary conference in 1994. Introduction The momentous upheaval in Eastern Europe in 1989, followed by the complete disintegration of the USSR, did not usher in the end of history as claimed by overly-enthusiastic Western commentators such as Fukuyama (1992) in the first wave of euphoria over the collapse of Marxist-Leninist ...

Bureaucracy: A Mises Classic, Part 1

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 Ludwig von Mises, the great expositor of the Austrian school of economics, left an awesome, even intimidating, body of work. Human Action and Socialism are among the most important books written in economic and social theory, yet most people with little spare time will probably not try to tackle them. Mises’s shorter works ...

Bush’s Presidential-Papers Power Grab

by James Bovard January 1, 2005

On November 1, 2001, President Bush issued an executive order entitled “Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act.” His order effectively overturned an act of Congress and a Supreme Court decision and could make it far more difficult for Americans to learn of government abuses. Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University ...

Equal Rights for the Disabled, Indeed

by Scott McPherson January 1, 2005

... a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. — Thomas Jefferson, 1801 Of all the misunderstandings that exist in ...

The Myth of the Level Playing Field

by Samuel Bostaph January 1, 2005

One of the catch phrases of the day is “a level playing field.” Some businessmen are using it to refer to the competitive situation in which they would prefer to be, but allege they are not for some reason. And, not surprisingly, the reason they usually give for not having “a level playing field” is that a competitor has ...

Government Can’t Run Schools Like Businesses

by Thomas L. Johnson January 1, 2005

What this all boils down to is, are we trying to raise sheep — timid, docile, easily driven or led — or free men? If what we want is sheep, our schools are perfect as they are. If what we want is free men, we’d better start making some big changes. — John Holt, The Underachieving School Just ...

How the Enemy Combatant Label Is Being Used, Part 1

by Jesslyn Radack January 1, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 On Monday, October 4, the Supreme Court declined to consider a petition filed by Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. Al-Marri is perhaps the least well known of the three persons who have been held in the United States as enemy combatants. The decision was unsurprising yet still disappointing. Al-Marri, who has been waiting for nearly three ...

Book Review: Restoring the Lost Constitution

by George Leef January 1, 2005

Restoring the Lost Constitution —The Presumption of Liberty by Randy E. Barnett (Princeton University Press, 2004); 366 pages; $32.50 Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. The dust jacket of this superlative book shows the first page of the U.S. Constitution with numerous holes in it, as if words and passages had been cut out — a ...

“Buy American” Hurts Americans

by Sheldon Richman December 29, 2004

President Bush has a plan to address the so-called trade deficit, which worries people so much. According to the wire services, Bush said, “People can buy more United States products if they’re worried about the trade deficit.” That will appeal to many Americans in a nationalistic fever. What could ...