Daily Articles

California’s Blow Against Property Rights

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 1997

California likes its reputation as the trend-setter of the nation, but let's hope it won't be true this time. On New Year's Day, it will become the first state where smoking is forbidden in bars. Most people don't smoke, so they may be pleased with this news. But that would be short-sighted, ...

The Creeping Takeover of Medical Care, Part 2

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 1997

Part 1 | Part 2 In Part I we saw that the right to medical care is a pseudo right. It cannot be a real right because it conflicts with rights that stand the test of authenticity. But that is only the beginning of what's wrong with trying to enforce a right to medical care. Imagine for a moment a ...

Neglected Fortieth Anniversary

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 1997

A remarkable event occurred 40 years ago this month. Not the launching of Sputnik, which in retrospect, considering the collapse of the Soviet Union, had much less significance than people suspected at the time. Ironically, the event I am thinking of involved a woman who understood from the ...

Some Republican Revolution

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 1997

With revolutionaries like these, who needs counter-revolutionaries? Now that President Clinton has signed all the 1998 spending bills, we have a clear picture just how vigilant the Republican Party, which controls the U.S. Congress, is about cutting back on the scope and power of government. It is not a ...

Killing and Lying for Safety: Airbags and the Salvation State

by James Bovard December 1, 1997

Airbags symbolize the bogus paternalism that increasingly blights Americans' lives. In order to save lives, federal regulators seem to have granted themselves a license to kill. While airbags are sometimes seen as an arcane consumer issue, they are actually a great lesson of the danger of the combination of ...

Economic Sanctions: Who Has What Rights?

by Samuel Bostaph December 1, 1997

Christmas is one of the most joyful times of the year for most Americans. Gaily decorated houses, yards, and Christmas trees sprout nationwide in November and last until the New Year season closes the holidays with fireworks, parties and, finally, the Super Bowl. People decorate their Christmas trees in many ways, but one of the staples is bright, multicolored strings ...

Book Review: Reniassance

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 1997

Renaissance: The Rebirth of Liberty in the Heart of Europe by Václav Klaus (Washington, D.C.: The Cato Institute, 1997); 177 pages; $18.95. 0ut of all the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the one that has so far had the greatest success in instituting market-oriented reform is the Czech Republic. Czechoslovakia emerged as an independent country in 1918, ...

Compromise and Concealment–The Road to Defeat, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 1997

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 Libertarian candidates for public office often say, "A no-compromise approach may be fine for a think tank, but it has no place in a political campaign. We have to be practical. We can't turn voters into libertarians overnight. ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 11: The Great Depression and the Crisis of Government Intervention

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1997

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | ...

The Creeping Takeover of Medical Care, Part 1

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1997

Part 1 | Part 2 President Clinton favors barring health-insurance companies from using genetic testing to determine whom they will insure. If that position is enacted into law, it will be one more step toward what he has been aiming at since he came into office: a government takeover of medical care. Why shouldn't health underwriters use the results of ...

Are Foreign Lobbyists Really a Threat?

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1997

Throughout the campaign finance investigation, there has been a presumption that lobbyists representing foreign interests are automatically inimical to the interests of the American people. Domestic lobbyists are bad enough, according to most people. But foreign lobbyists must be even worse. Right? Not necessarily. If we look in one particular area of policy, world trade, foreign ...

Ruining People’s Lives for Fun and Profit

by James Bovard November 1, 1997

In recent years, entrapment schemes have exploded as government agencies seek to distract attention from their failure to protect citizens from real criminals and to maximize their power to intimidate the citizenry. Entrapment is "the act of officers or agents of the government in inducing a person to commit ...