War Is the Health of the State by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2002 SOME CONSERVATIVES are surprised to find people on the left supporting the war in Afghanistan. It’s not surprising at all. War collectivizes society (the euphemism is “unites”) and increases the government’s domestic power. There is no mystery here. In war there seems to be one overriding goal for the entire society: defeat the enemy. Everything else ...
State Terrorism and Bush’s War by James Bovard March 1, 2002 ON OCTOBER 18, President George W. Bush declared, “So long as anybody’s terrorizing established governments, there needs to be a war.” Bush thereby signaled his acceptance of the legitimacy of almost every government in the world. Bush’s war on terrorism is a moral crusade. This is clear from his constant references to “the evil ones” and ...
Netscape Gets the Green by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2002 Imagine the nerve of a company that gives away its product in an attempt to knock off the dominant firm in an industry. I have one such company in mind right now. It went all out to make it easy for consumers to have free access to its product. You couldn’t ...
The New England Labor Reform League by Wendy McElroy March 1, 2002 IN GRAPPLING with the same strategic questions that confront modern libertarianism, the 19th-century movement evolved a remarkable organization that engaged in both education and grassroots activism. The New England Labor Reform League (NELRL) sprang from an 1869 gathering of labor radicals in Boston. The leading force in its founding was ...
Book Review: Rebels on the Air by George Leef March 1, 2002 Rebels on the Air — An Alternative History of Radio in America by Jesse Walker (New York University Press, 2001); 326 pages; $24.95. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE harboring an escaped Cuban child to receive an unexpected, pre-dawn visit from a federal SWAT team. Early in ...
The Right to Confront and Cross-Examine Witnesses by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2002 Included among the Bush administration’s new rules for the trials of suspected terrorists captured abroad is the right of the accused (or his attorney) to confront and cross-examine witnesses, a right guaranteed to Americans in criminal prosecutions by the Sixth Amendment. But the Bush administration is being disingenuous in the ...
Book Review: Wilhelm Ropke by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2002 Wilhelm Röpke: Swiss Localist, Global Economist by John Zmirak (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2001); 229 pages; $24.95. WITHOUT A DOUBT, Wilhelm Röpke was one of the leading free-market economists of the 20th century and one of the most influential thinkers in Germany after the Second World War. Many years ago, an economist acquaintance of mine, who had studied with Röpke in ...
Enron and the Cheney List by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2002 The controversy over Vice President Dick Cheney’s secret energy-policy consultation list is amusing. Government should certainly err on the side of disclosing such things, but that’s not the point here. Those most vocal in demanding the list seem to be saying they can’t judge the Bush administration’s energy policy ...
What Makes a Nation Evil? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 10, 2002 With President Bush's characterization of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an “axis of evil,” an obvious question arises: What makes a nation evil? Is it the evil nature of the ruler in a nation? Or is it the evil nature of the government itself? If it's the government, does that mean that everyone who ...
Raining on the Victory Parade by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2002 WOULD SOMEONE MIND telling me whether the war in Afghanistan is over or not? U.S. government officials seem to be proclaiming victory. But if the war has been won, then why is the U.S. government continuing to bomb Afghanistan, conduct that everyone agrees continues to kill innocent civilians, albeit as unfortunate “collateral damage”? If the replacement of the murderous and abusive ...
Ending Public School Violence by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2002 Washington, D.C., officials are shocked over a Washington Times report detailing an extraordinary increase in violence in D.C. public schools. The Times reported that “the number of assaults with deadly weapons in the District’s schools has doubled during the past four years, with as many as 423 students caught ...
Slave to the Olympics by Bart Frazier February 1, 2002 Getting up to answer the knock at your door, you open it to find a police officer standing stiffly, fidgeting with his nightstick. “Mr. Jones, I am here for the soccer field”, he says tersely. “Soccer field?” you say. “I don’t get it.”