Federal Spending Threatens Our Security by Jacob G. Hornberger September 17, 2003 As is widely known, the federal spigots in foreign affairs, as in domestic affairs, are now wide open: hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent in Iraq, not to mention the billions of dollars in foreign aid that will be sent to dozens of foreign governments, all under the ...
Preserving Barns the Free-Market Way by Scott McPherson September 15, 2003 There is a conflict over barns in New England. A man named Ken Epworth, a New Yorker, has formed a business called the Barn People, which specializes in disassembling 18th-century and 19th-century barns and reassembling them as attachments to expensive homes elsewhere. Locals are reacting angrily, accusing Epworth ...
Trade Restrictions Show Hypocrisy by Sheldon Richman September 12, 2003 A lesson in government hypocrisy — as if one were needed these days — is to be found in the agricultural policies of the rich nations of the world, including the United States. The U.S. government incessantly proclaims its desire to help the world’s poor. Empty words. Sure, the ...
Ballot-Access Laws: A High Cost of Running for Office by Bart Frazier September 12, 2003 The field of economics has had an interesting history in that the principles developed during its evolution have been widely applied to many other fields, one of them being politics. Nowhere today does the economic principle of transaction costs reveal more about politics than in California.
Another Phony Justification for Invading Iraq by Jacob G. Hornberger September 10, 2003 In a 15-minute speech explaining why the American people should support the occupation of Iraq, President Bush offered another phony justification for the U.S. government’s invasion of Iraq: to fight the “war on terrorism.” There’s at least one big problem with that justification: It is the U.S. government’s own interventionist ...
Oh, Now the U.S. Cares About Iraqis by Jacob G. Hornberger September 8, 2003 Labeling resisters to the U.S. occupation of Iraq as “terrorists” obfuscates an important point — that there are people in Iraq and all over the Middle East who hate the United States ... and, equally important, have good and sound reasons for hating the United States. That’s the last ...
Protecting Whales by Scott McPherson September 8, 2003 The government of Iceland has recently commissioned a whaling ship to hunt and kill 38 minke whales to study the contents of their stomachs. According to the Washington Times (August 18), the Icelandic government claims the research is necessary “to measure effect on fish stocks such as ...
There Is No Freedom in Iraq, Part 3 by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 2003 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Unfortunately, all too many Americans have swallowed — hook, line, and sinker — the Bush administration’s claim that the Iraqi people are now free. The U.S. invasion of Iraq has indeed ousted the brutal dictatorial regime that ruled the country, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that life under the regime ...
An Empire for America by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 2003 Shortly before his death in 1902, the great classical-liberal social philosopher Herbert Spencer penned an essay entitled “Imperialism and Slavery” that was included in a collection of his writings under the title Facts and Comments (1902). The theme of the essay was that, as Great Britain was proceeding to expand its empire around the world, it was not only enslaving ...
The Fraud of Insider-Trading Law, Part 1 by Sheldon Richman September 1, 2003 Part 1 | Part 2 This article was originally intended as a discussion of the Martha Stewart case. But instead it will be a discussion of insider trading. Many people think those are one and the same issue. But that is incorrect. After more than a year of associating Martha Stewart with insider trading, the U.S. Justice Department declined to ...
Let the Chips Fall by Scott McPherson September 1, 2003 According to the August 11 Washington Times, in a story titled “How visa program robs U.S. technology workers of their jobs,” American computer programmers are finding it harder and harder to stay employed because of the “unintended consequences of the nation’s non-immigrant visa program — particularly the L-1 ...
Bush’s WMD Flimflams by James Bovard September 1, 2003 The Bush administration’s rush to war against Iraq was justified largely by the danger that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction supposedly posed to the United States and to U.S. allies. In his January 28, 2003, state of the Union address, Bush denounced Saddam as “the dictator who is assembling the world’s ...