Daily Articles

John Stuart Mill and the Three Dangers to Liberty

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2001

JOHN STUART MILL’S 1859 ESSAY “On Liberty” is one of the most enduring and powerful defenses of individual freedom ever penned. Both advocates and enemies of personal freedom have challenged either the premises or the logic in Mill’s argument. They have pointed out inconsistencies or incompleteness in his reasoning. But the ...

Don’t Fund Religious Groups

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2001

President Bush just doesn’t get it. He may say, repeatedly, that the surplus belongs to the people and push for a modest tax cut, but if he really believed his own words, he wouldn’t be proposing to spend the taxpayers’ money on social-welfare activities performed by religious organizations. Mr. ...

Save Immigrants: Tear Down Our Wall

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2001

On the heels of his recent regret for the drug-war deaths in Peru of a missionary and her baby, President Bush has now expressed condolences for the deaths of 14 Mexican citizens on the Arizona desert. The men died of thirst and exposure after crossing into the United ...

Free Markets Aren’t Conservative

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2001

One of the great myths of the Industrial Age is that businessmen generally like free markets. That myth has deep implications and consequences. For example, someone who buys into it will tend to believe that proposals to deregulate markets are simply favors for special interests and inimical to the interests ...

Send Chainsaws to AID

by James Bovard June 1, 2001

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION is earnestly seeking to reform scores of federal programs after the scandal-ridden Clinton years. But sometimes there is no substitute for a good chainsaw massacre. Such is the case with foreign aid. The U.S. is now giving $15 billion a year in foreign aid — economic and military ...

The Free-Soil Movement, Part 2

by Wendy McElroy June 1, 2001

Part 1 |Part 2 The key issue around which the free-soil debate revolved was slavery. Specifically, the question was whether slavery would be extended into the territories that were expected to seek statehood. Both anti-slavery farmers and slave-owners had been migrating into the territories for years. Each group was eager to acquire the political clout that came from having a ...

Book Review: The Burden of Bad Ideas

by George Leef June 1, 2001

The Burden of Bad Ideas by Heather Mac Donald (Chicago, Ill.: Ivan R. Dee, 2000); 242 pages; $26. WE HAVE ALL HAD our share of bad ideas. Most of the time, we discard them before acting on them, but when we do act on a bad idea, we usually realize quickly that it was ...

Book Review: Regulation without the State

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 2001

Regulation without the State ... The Debate Continues by John Blundell and Colin Robinson (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2000); 93 pages; $15. ALMOST 40 YEARS AGO, free-market economist and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman published a short book entitled Capitalism and Freedom (1962). At a time during which Keynesian economics and the popularity of the interventionist-welfare state were still on the ...

War Crimes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 2, 2001

Reports of killings of noncombatants during the Vietnam and Korean Wars have recently caused Americans to reflect upon the concept of war crimes, and specifically those committed by their own military forces. But why stop with those two wars? Why not use the opportunity to revisit what U.S. military forces did to the Japanese at ...

The Declaration and the Constitution

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2001

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION was one of the most remarkable periods in history, not so much for the military battles that were fought but for the ideas and principles that were expressed during that time. Foremost among the documents expressing those ideas and principles are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which are inexorably intertwined. Throughout history, people have viewed ...

The Oklahoma City Bombing

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2001

The Oklahoma City Bombing With the upcoming execution of convicted mass murderer Timothy McVeigh, much has been made of McVeigh's indifference to the fact that included among the 168 deaths in the Oklahoma City bombing were 19 children. McVeigh has referred to the children's deaths as "collateral damage." But it's important that we not forget that McVeigh is not ...

Free Trade without the “But”

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2001

Heads of state throughout the Western Hemisphere gathered recently in Quebec City to talk about setting up a hemispheric free-trade zone. But as usual, the politicians spoke with forked tongues. When these guys say “free trade” they really mean “free trade, but.” There are more ...