Daily Articles

Drug-War Justice for the Rich and Powerful

by James Bovard December 1, 2002

Even in these difficult times, a few simple rules can take some of the peril out of everyday life. For instance, if you’re planning to become a crackhead, make sure that you are the president’s niece. And a governor’s daughter. And that your family is rich enough to hire three lawyers to ply every legal ...

Immigration Controls Are Bad for the Economy And for Freedom

by Scott McPherson December 1, 2002

At the risk of uttering a terrible clich, America is a land of immigrants. The 13 British colonies that flourished on the Atlantic coast could not have existed were it not for brave men and women willing to start life anew in a strange land. These people came for many reasons; some wished to escape religious and political persecution; ...

Book Review: The Myth of Ownership

by George Leef December 1, 2002

The Myth of Ownership — Taxes and Justice by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel (Oxford University Press, 2002); 190 pages; $25. During the Vietnam War, a popular protest slogan went “Fighting for peace is like drinking for sobriety.” After reading The Myth of Ownership, I feel like making a sign reading, “Taxing for justice is like fighting for peace and drinking ...

Book Review: Rethinking the Great Depression

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 2002

Rethinking the Great Depression by Gene Smiley (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002); 179 pages; $24.95. The Great Depression of the early 1930s has left a deep and lasting mark on the United States. For many in the general public the Great Depression still conjures up the image of mass unemployment caused by the failure of unregulated capitalism. For many in the ...

The Embarrassment and Illegality of the No-Fly Zones

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 21, 2002

President Bush's "zero tolerance" for Iraqi violations of UN resolutions has apparently dropped to "two percent tolerance." According to administration officials, Iraqi forces have once again fired on U.S. planes patrolling the no-fly zones in Iraq, which U.S. officials had previously claimed would constitute an immediate justification for invading Iraq, not ...

The Glass Houses of Dictators

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 18, 2002

President Bush’s reaction to the Iraqi parliament’s rejection of the newly enacted UN resolution authorizing renewed inspections in Iraq provides a fascinating insight into the direction in which our own nation is headed. According to the New York Times, President Bush said, “The Iraqi Parliament is nothing but a rubber stamp ...

There Is No Such Thing as Federal Aid

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 18, 2002

85th General Assembly STATE OF INDIANA House Concurrent Resolution No. 2 INDIANA needs no guardian and intends to have none. We Hoosiers — like the people of our sister states — were fooled for quite a spell with the magician’s trick that a dollar taxed out of our pockets and sent to Washington, will be ...

I Need Provocation Now

by Sheldon Richman November 9, 2002

It’s shocking how the quality of America’s leaders has declined over the decades. Do you believe that the U.S. government is actually contemplating an unprovoked war against Iraq? Think about that: Iraq has staged no attack on the United States. You can’t count the firing on American military aircraft. That’s ...

Pawn Takes Knight

by Sheldon Richman November 9, 2002

Yeah, right. Even though Saddam Hussein has now agreed to unconditional weapons inspection, the world is going to support a U.S. war against Iraq because he hasn’t released his political prisoners or returned Kuwaiti property. Those acts of omission aren’t exactly the stuff of a global threat. It’s turning out that ...

Delayed Blowback in Indonesia

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 9, 2002

Indonesian reaction to the recent bomb blast in Bali that killed 180 people is another example of the consequences of U.S. interventionist policies. According to an article in the Nov. 7 issue of the New York Times, a common perception among educated Indonesians is that the CIA, not Islamic terrorists, set off ...

A Rare Moment of Candor

by Sheldon Richman November 9, 2002

President Bush says he’s got the economy under control. That’s supposed to comfort us. I’d feel better if he said he had the federal government under control. It’s spending wildly — and it can’t blame the “war on terrorism” for it all. That’s just the latest spending. ...

So Goes the American Dream

by Bart Frazier November 4, 2002

The American dream once was a reality. A man was free to use his resources any way he saw fit to provide for himself and his family. Whether his resources were personal skills or material in nature, he was free to use them whichever way he wanted, as long as he did not infringe ...