Daily Articles

War Is No Blank Check

by Sheldon Richman July 14, 2004

“A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens.” Those words from Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor are music to the ears of every friend of freedom. That line is a direct slap at President George ...

The Draft Is Fascist

by Sheldon Richman July 9, 2004

A former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon thinks his old boss made a mistake when he ended the military draft in the early 1970s during the war in Vietnam. Noel Koch reports that Nixon himself came to believe he erred and “ that the draft be restored.” Well, that’s too bad. ...

Government by Euphemism

by Sheldon Richman July 2, 2004

People live by political euphemisms. Sometimes they die by them, as when civilians are bombed in the name of liberating them. There are less lethal euphemisms, but since all of them embody dishonesty (the word euphemism itself is a euphemism), they all have bad consequences. Those that do not kill may merely make us poorer and less free. Most politicians ...

The Bill of Rights: Freedom of Speech

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2004

When the Constitution was being proposed to our American ancestors in 1787, many people expressed the concern that the document failed to specify the fundamental rights of the people that would be immune from assault by federal officials. The response to that argument was that since the Constitution expressly restricted the government to specified, enumerated powers, and since those powers ...

Why Do Libertarians Ignore the Therapeutic State?

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2004

It’s a truism that libertarians care about liberty. For libertarians, liberty belongs to the individual. Groups are free only in the sense that each member is free. A group free to coerce its members is, in the libertarian worldview, a contradiction in terms. This position is straightforward, and it ought to be uncontroversial. Facts and ...

Torture as Due Process

by James Bovard July 1, 2004

After 9/11, the word of the president was supposedly the only protection that the rights and liberties of the American people needed. After 9/11, President Bush granted himself unlimited, unchecked power over anyone in the world suspected of being a terrorist. The Supreme Court, in a series of rulings on June ...

What a Republican Majority Has Not Meant

by Laurence M. Vance July 1, 2004

It has been more than a year now since the Republicans gained an absolute majority in Congress and the White House. The road to this majority began in the third year of Bill Clintons first term. The Republicans gained complete control of the 104th Congress (19951997), held on to control in the 105th Congress (19971999), and remained in power ...

The Colonial Venture of Ireland, Part 3

by Wendy McElroy July 1, 2004

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 In 1912, Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith introduced a “Government of Ireland Bill” that attempted to establish an Irish parliament with a popularly elected lower house and an appointed senate. A small delegation of Irish was to remain at Westminster to represent Ireland’s interest in the ...

The Irish Soldiers of Mexico, Part 1

by Michael Hogan July 1, 2004

Part 1 | Part 2 One of the least-known stories of the Irish who came to America in the 1840s is that of the Irish battalion that fought on the Mexican side in the U.S.-Mexico War of 1846–1848. They came to Mexico and died, some gloriously in combat, others ignominiously on the gallows. United under a green banner, they ...

Farm Subsidies Must Go

by Sheldon Richman June 30, 2004

In Washington, hypocrisy knows no bounds. The latest example is the U.S. government’s response to the World Trade Organization’s preliminary ruling that subsidies to American cotton farmers distort international trade and violate WTO rules. The first response from U.S. officials was that Brazil, which brought the complaint, should ...

A Supreme Reason to Celebrate the Fourth of July

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 30, 2004

With the Supreme Court’s delivery of severe blows this week against the assumption and exercise of certain dictatorial powers by the president and the Pentagon, every American should feel freer, safer, and more secure. While the Court avoided issuing a substantive ruling in the most critical case — the Jose Padilla case — the Court’s holdings and statements in the ...

No Right to Remain Silent

by Sheldon Richman June 25, 2004

You have the right to remain silent — unless you’re asked your name when you aren’t even charged with a crime. That’s right: it can now be a crime to refuse to tell a policeman your name. What’s happening to America? Nevada and 20 other states have criminalized remaining ...