Daily Articles

Civil Liberty and the State: The Writ of Habeas Corpus

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2002

LIMITING THE POWERS OF GOVERNMENT has been one of the leading struggles in the history of mankind. Through most of man’s time on earth, governments have presumed to rule, command, order, and threaten multitudes of human beings — to make the mass of humanity bend to the will of their political masters. The political rulers have often considered themselves to ...

Andrea Yates: Person or Nonperson?

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2002

Andrea Yates has been convicted of murder. But the debate over the insanity plea will continue. Yates admitted to methodically drowning her five young children in a bathtub. Yet she claimed that mental illness made her do it and she didn’t know right from wrong. This is nothing but a modern, secular version of ...

The Bush Administration’s “Drugs = Terrorism” Fraud

by James Bovard April 1, 2002

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy spent more than $3 million for two TV ads during Sunday’s Super Bowl. One ad asked viewers: “Where do terrorists get their money?” The answer: “If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you.” Drug users are portrayed as terrorist financiers — practically ...

The Wars on Drugs and Terrorism Meet in Afghanistan

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2002

The U.S. government’s wars on drugs and terrorism are now coming together in Afghanistan, a nation famous for the production of opium. Prior to the Taliban regime, Afghanistan had been the world’s largest producer of poppies. But under the Taliban regime, the Afghan government waged a war on drugs as fiercely as the U.S. ...

Declaring and Waging War: The U.S. Constitution

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2002

Excuse me for asking an indelicate question in the midst of war, but where does President Bush derive the power to send the United States into war against another nation? The question becomes increasingly important given that the president has indicated that once the Afghan War has been brought to a conclusion, he intends to ...

War and the State: The Legacy of Randolph Bourne

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2002

AS I POINTED OUT in last month’s Freedom Daily (“War Is the Health of the State,” March 2002), Randolph Bourne was an American intellectual during the Progressive era who found himself isolated as President Woodrow Wilson conspired to take the United States into World War I. He understood war to be illiberal by ...

The State Tells Us Where We Can and Cannot Eat

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2002

An Amish farm has come under attack from the paternalistic welfare state in Pennsylvania. According to a story in the New York Times, many Amish families are offering hungry tourists a home-cooked meal in return for a donation. This has put both the State Bureau of Food Safety as well as the ...

Bush’s Opium Boom

by James Bovard April 1, 2002

Last year saw what is probably the single biggest one-year increase in opium production in world history. Since the Bush administration toppled the Taliban regime, opium production in Afghanistan has increased from 185 tons in 2001 to 3,700 tons in 2002 — an increase of twentyfold. Afghanistan has historically produced more than two-thirds of the world opium supply and ...

Why Congress Investigates Enron

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2002

Members of Congress are certainly licking their chops over the Enron affair. Now why would that be? Could it be that they cannot resist investigating a company that apparently lied to the public, misrepresented its financial situation, kept lousy records, engaged in conflicts of interest, and acted covertly? Wait, that sounds ...

Bush Betrays Free Enterprise

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2002

There’s no longer any excuse for thinking that President Bush is a champion of free-enterprise capitalism. The week of March 4 sealed the question. He began the week by imposing tariffs up to 30 percent on imported steel. True, he didn’t give the industry and the steelworkers all that they wanted. He ...

Anthrax Antics from Uncle Sam

by James Bovard April 1, 2002

SINCE THE TERRORIST ATTACKS last September 11, public opinion polls show a sharp decrease in cynicism about government and politicians. Yet, if one has been paying attention since then, it is difficult not to conclude that there is still, occasionally at least, a sliver of evidence that could foment cynical tendencies. In his state of the Union address on January ...

World War I and the Suppression of Dissent, Part 1

by Wendy McElroy April 1, 2002

Part 1 | Part 2 THE YEARS SURROUNDING Americas involvement in World War I were a watershed for how the United States treated foreigners within its borders during wartime. Immigrants had flooded the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, almost a third of ...