Daily Articles

Fiscal Force

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2002

“I know ev’rybody’s income and what ev’rybody earns; And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns;” — W.S. Gilbert, Princess Ida April is the cruelest month, for reasons other than what T.S. Eliot had in mind. This is the month in which you must account for yourself to Caesar. The ...

America’s Hypocritical, Counterproductive Foreign Aid

by James Bovard May 1, 2002

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION has been triumphantly shutting down and seizing the assets of one Muslim charity after another. In some cases, such as that of the Holy Land Foundation, the evidence appears based largely on accusations from informants who overheard speeches seven or eight years ago. In other cases, the Treasury Department is releasing ...

World War I and the Suppression of Dissent, Part 2

by Wendy McElroy May 1, 2002

Part 1 | Part 2 IN THE SUMMER OF 1905, labor radicals assembled in Chicago to found a new group the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It operated in competition with the more conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL), then the most powerful labor group in the United States. As well as embodying socialism, the IWW embraced less-restrictive ...

Jimmy Carter’s Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2002

Jimmy Carter’s remarks during his recent trip to Cuba are a perfect reflection of the muddled mindset that characterizes both Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the subject of freedom. Carter raised the importance of four aspects of liberty during his trip—political liberty, civil liberty, economic, and educational ...

Book Review: The Elusive Quest for Growth

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2002

The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics by William Easterly (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2002); 342 pages; $29.95. POVERTY, UNFORTUNATELY, is the natural condition of man. And through most of his time on earth, as best as historians can determine, his standard of living has been meager and poor. But slowly over the centuries certain ...

A Devotion to Democracy?

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 20, 2002

What’s with the love fest between U.S. officials and army generals? We have, of course, (retired) Army General Colin Powell serving as U.S. secretary of state. And we have (or will have) military tribunals manned by army officials, rather than jury trials by civilians, for foreigners accused of terrorism. There is Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani army ...

Military Tribunal Rules Violate the Rule of Law

by Sheldon Richman April 15, 2002

The government giveth and the government taketh away. Sometimes it does so simultaneously. When the Bush administration announced it would hold military tribunals for captured Taliban and al-Qaeda members, concern about the un-America nature of the proceedings were so loud the Pentagon was forced to go back to the drawing board to fine-tune the plan. When ...

Freedom and Campaign-Finance Reform

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2002

Amidst not very much fanfare, President Bush has signed the new campaign-finance reform bill into law. This one closes the so-called soft-money loophole that permits large donations to be injected into federal campaigns through contributions to political parties. There are two big problems, however, with this most recent attempt to end corruption in the political process: First, it won’t work ...

Bush’s Contempt for Trial by Jury

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2002

BOWING TO PUBLIC PRESSURE, the Bush administration has modified its rules for the trials of suspected terrorists captured abroad. Included among the new rules are: (1) the accused will be presumed innocent rather than guilty; (2) the government will be required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; (3) the defendant will have the right to have an attorney ...

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 ...