Daily Articles

Better Late than Never on Sanctions

by Sheldon Richman May 16, 2003

The Bush administration wants the United Nations to lift the economic sanctions against the now-Hussein-less Iraq because they impose cruel hardship on the Iraqi people. Better late than never. Some of us have been saying for years that the sanctions were a cruel and futile attempt to undermine Saddam Hussein’s regime ...

The O.P.S.B.

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 16, 2003

Prior to and during President Bush's recent war on Iraq, there were multitudes of old American men (i.e., men more than 40 years old) who eagerly supported sending American troops into battle. Those American men who lacked the courage to “support the troops” in this way were denounced by ...

If They Hadn’t Been Breaking the Law, This Wouldn’t Have Happened

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 16, 2003

The federal governments response to the deaths of those 18 illegal Latin American immigrants in South Texas was predictable because its the same response that the feds have made every time such a tragedy has occurred. The governments response: criticism, condemnation, and prosecution of either the immigrant for illegal entry or the transporter of the ...

Terrorism Déjà Vu in Saudi Arabia

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 14, 2003

Monday’s terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia brings to mind the words of the famous New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” During the 1980s, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a friend and ally of the U.S. government, even to the extent that our own government authorized the delivery of weapons of ...

Leave Bill Bennett Alone

by Scott McPherson May 9, 2003

Public revelations of former drug czar William J. Bennett’s penchant for high-stakes gambling has produced immediate reform for the Book of Virtues author: “It is true that I have gambled large sums of money.... I have done too much gambling, and this is not an example I wish to set. ...

Short-Sighted Bush

by Sheldon Richman May 9, 2003

Advocates of big government sometimes say that politicians are superior to business people because the latter are shortsighted: they only care about the next quarter’s balance sheet. This was always nonsense, because while business has strong incentives to look farther up the road, politicians have little incentive to look beyond the next election. It turns out that ...

For Love of the State

by Scott McPherson May 9, 2003

On April 25, the Washington Times ran a front-page story titled, Ashcroft asserts right to hold illegals, Says indefinite detentions aids security. And, with a taste for irony that couldnt possibly have been intentional, the Times ran an op-ed on the same day, by Jerome Cohen of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Jared Genser, president of Freedom Now, titled ...

Backpedaling on Iraqi Weapons

by Sheldon Richman May 3, 2003

The campaign of deception continues, but the handwriting is on the wall. President Bush himself now says that so-called weapons of mass destruction may never be found in Iraq. But hes not yet willing to concede that perhaps Saddam Hussein was telling the truth when he said he had none. ...

Joining the Ranks of Aggressor Nations

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 2, 2003

It really doesn’t matter whether U.S. military forces now find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or not. From a moral standpoint, it’s too late for that. As everyone knows, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush provided several justifications for the invasion, and people were ...

Economic Liberty and the Constitution, Part 12

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 |  Table of Contents Elsie Parrish, a chambermaid at the Cascadian Hotel in ...

An American Empire! If You Want It instead of Freedom, Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 Also making a case for an imperial role for the United States is Deepak Lal, professor of international development studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Lal has long been a leading opponent of central planning and regulation in developing countries and a strong advocate of free markets and competition. On October 30, ...

Concentric Circles

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2003

Libertarians are always happy to get noticed in the mainstream media. It happens so seldom. But not all attention is good attention, even when it’s sympathetic. Susan Lee, of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, teaches this lesson in her article on the newspaper’s editorial page of February 12. Ominously titled “Sex, Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll,” Lee’s article pays ...