Daily Articles

Conscription: Not Now; Not Ever, Part 2

by Doug Bandow August 1, 2002

Part 1 | Part 2 Dubious international commitments have exacerbated the military’s recruitment and retention problems. Focus-group interviews have found young men to be reluctant to support America’s increasing role as international policeman. Reported two researchers at the Defense Manpower Data Center, “Youth today generally view the military as less attractive than before the end of the Cold War. A ...

Teaching Obedience, Not Algebra

by Crispin Sartwell August 1, 2002

There’s no such thing as public education. Education happens to exactly one person at a time. There are some things that you just have to do by yourself. Even if I’m your teacher, you can’t have my education; your education is a private task that is given to yourself. The education of someone or everyone else doesn’t add a single ...

Book Review: By Order of the President

by George Leef August 1, 2002

By Order of the President by Greg Robinson (Harvard University Press, 2001); 322 pages; $27.95. If you go to the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C., you will see numerous statues, including one depicting men standing in a bread line. But you won’t see any statue showing Americans of Japanese ancestry staring out from behind barbed wire in one ...

Book Review: The Real Lincoln

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 2002

The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War by Thomas DiLorenzo (Roseville, Calf.; Prima Publishing, 2002); 333 pages; $24.95. In his books Race and Economics (1975) and Markets and Minorities (1981), free-market economist Thomas Sowell explained and analyzed the nature and workings of the slave economy in the pre-Civil War American South. He emphasized ...

Economic Liberty and the Constitution, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2002

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 THE PRIMARY SIGNIFICANCE of the Declaration of Independence lay ...

The Fall of Libertarianism or the Failure of Interventionism? A Reply to Francis Fukuyama

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2002

FRANCIS FUKUYAMA gained international recognition in 1989 when he published an article in The National Interest entitled “The End of Man.” He offered a “Hegelian” conception of the evolution and direction of human history. In short, he argued that human society was following a dialectical trajectory of development that would end with the triumph of liberal democracy around the ...

Health Is the Health of the State

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2002

PRESIDENT BUSH has named a new surgeon general, Dr. Richard Carmona of Arizona, to succeed Bill Clinton’s man, Dr. David Satcher. Satcher is the surgeon general who vowed to get us all to lose weight with his “Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity.” As he put it, “Our ultimate goal ...

Finding Safety from Terrorism

by Scott McPherson July 1, 2002

Since September 11, safety, security, and liberty are at the forefront of every American’s mind. As in most crises, some Americans believe that a stronger and more powerful central government is the answer. But is it? Responding to an increased demand for protection, the federal government has embraced a number of “solutions” to the terrorist threat, ...

Farmers Should Oppose Socialism

by Scott McPherson July 1, 2002

The Brownsville, Tennessee, offices of the Department of Agriculture were the scene of a recent five-day sit-in by black farmers who claim that government loan applications are being stalled by a racist system. Instead of complaining about racism, though, they should be complaining about socialism. Over the last 70 years, ...

When Will the Catastrophists Learn?

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2002

The doomsayers never give up. Whats more, they are an ever-moving target. Refute one of their claims of catastrophe, and they are back with another before you can say, “The future is bright.” Sometimes even the good news is bad. The global catastrophists, such a Paul Ehrlich, used to say, “The ...

Is the Prison-Industrial Complex on the Ropes?

by James Bovard July 1, 2002

PRISONS HAVE BEEN THE most reliable growth industry in America over the last two decades. The surge in lockups in this country in recent times is spawning a prison-industrial complex, hungry to rig the political system to ensure the continued delivery of legions of bodies along with their related financial profits. But the boom could finally be coming to ...

Conscription: Not Now; Not Ever, Part 1

by Doug Bandow July 1, 2002

Part 1 | Part 2 ON SEPTEMBER 11, it had been almost 60 years since the U.S. homeland had come under attack. As they did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans turned to the military for their defense. But now, in contrast to the past, they are finding security in a volunteer military. When ...