CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “Our Governments Black Box” by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1999 "In last Sunday's edition of the Washington Post, Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the National Security Archive, details the U.S. government's refusal to disclose its full role in the violent overthrow of Chilean president Salvador Allende and the murder of American journalist Charles Horman. The CIA in particular refuses to ...
CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “Compulsory Charity” by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1999 "Texas Gov. George W. Bush has announced nearly $500,000 in state grants to Christian groups. Bush said, 'America will be changed because people of faith and good heart are willing to help people in need.' Where exactly is the goodness in this? The Texas state government collects tax from the people ...
The Myth of Public Service by Sheldon Richman October 1, 1999 The death of John F. Kennedy Jr. filled the airwaves with much rhapsodizing about "public service." Never mind that Kennedy did not go into public service, but rather launched a for-profit enterprise, George magazine (although it glamorizes public service). That didn't stop commentators and politicians from lavishing praise on the Kennedys for, as Vice President Al Gore put it, ...
Ethnic Cleansing, American-Style by James Bovard October 1, 1999 The United States government intervened earlier this year in a civil war in Yugoslavia. President Clinton and other Western leaders justified the NATO bombing by the crackdowns that Serbian forces had conducted on Kosovar Albanian rebels and civilians. However, prior to the onset of NATO bombing, the actions of the ...
Child Labor and the British Industrial Revolution, Part 2 by Lawrence W. Reed October 1, 1999 Part 1 | Part 2 It has not been uncommon for historians, including many who lived and wrote in the 19th century, to report the travails of the apprentice children without ever realizing they were effectively indicting government, not the economic arrangement of free exchange we call capitalism. In 1857, Alfred Kydd published a two-volume work entitled ...
Time to Rethink the War on Drugs by David Boaz October 1, 1999 Eighty-four percent of Americans say that possible cocaine use in his 20s should not disqualify Texas governor George W. Bush from being president. But if a cocaine user can go on to be president, why should we put young people in jail for using cocaine? Maybe the voters' indifference to Bush's possible past indicates that ...
Book Review: What do Economists Contribute? by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 1999 What Do Economists Contribute? edited by Daniel B. Klein (New York: New York University Press, 1999); 156 pages; $14.95. The following is the abstract of an economics article that appeared in the November 1998 issue of the International Economics Review: "The authors investigate confidence intervals and inference for the instrumental variables model with weak instruments. Confidence intervals based ...
Loving Your Country and Hating Your Government by Jacob G. Hornberger September 2, 1999 After the bombing of the Alfred J. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, President Clinton declared, "There's nothing patriotic about hating your government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country." I wonder whether the president still feels the same way in light of the government's lies and cover-up ...
Group of Odd People by Sheldon Richman September 2, 1999 What a sorry lot the GOP is. The frontrunner, Gov. George W. Bush, bases his campaign on the slogan "prosperity with a purpose." Pardon me? I have no idea what that means, but I don't like the sound of it. A president of the United States, and the irants for that office, have no business ...
The Nationalization of Income by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1999 It's election time and Republicans are making their quadrennial call for income-tax cuts. Democrats are opposing them because the federal government needs the money to shore up Medicare and Social Security. The entire debate obscures an uncomfortable truth — that in 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution effectively nationalized the income of every American. Although most Americans honestly believe ...
Wrong Again, Mr. President by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1999 Leave it to President Clinton to do the right thing in the wrong way. Last week the President announced that he would forgive, with Congress's consent, more than $5 billion in loans that 36 poor nations owe the U.S. government. This in itself is entirely proper for one simple reason: the governments ...
Loving Your Country and Hating Your Government by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1999 After the bombing of the Alfred J. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, President Clinton declared, "There's nothing patriotic about hating your government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country." I wonder whether the president still feels the same way in light of the government's ...