Daily Articles

Should Hate Be a Crime?

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1997

Some policymakers in Washington want to make it easier for the federal government to prosecute people for what's in their minds. Among those who support that idea are President Clinton and Senators Edward Kennedy and Arlen Specter. The foolishness, as you can see, is bipartisan. Kennedy and Specter are cosponsors ...

Topsy Turvy Foreign Policy

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1997

U.S. foreign policy can be confusing. Jiang Zemin heads the brutal communist government in the most populous nation in the world. He gets a state dinner at the White House and trade deals. Fidel Castro heads the communist government on the small island of Cuba. He can't get within a hundred miles of the White ...

Why Do the Taxpayers Have to Support Professional Sports?

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1997

No sooner did Wayne Huizinga's Florida Marlins win the World Series than he repeated his hope that the city of Miami would build the team a new baseball park. Huizinga is a successful businessman who is convinced that the city will not finance the park if he is connected with the ...

Medical Regulation Piled on Medical Regulation

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1997

President Clinton is continuing his piecemeal but relentless drive toward federal control of health care in the United States. Rebuffed by the American people and the Congress when he went for the Big Reform in 1993, he has decided that what he couldn't force us to swallow all at once he will have us ...

Contra Gradualism

by Wendy McElroy November 1, 1997

It is 1858 and you are living in a Northern town. A man has arrived at your door with papers documenting his ownership of a runaway slave whom you are sheltering. The slave throws himself at your feet, begging to stay while the slaveowner reasons with you. Being philosophically inclined, he ...

Book Review: Power Kills

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 1997

Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence by R.J. Rummel (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1997); 246 pages; $32.95. In 1994, political scientist R.J. Rummel summarized the consequences of tyrannical government in the 20th century in his book Death by Government. (See the review in Freedom Daily, October 1994.) His research showed that governments around the world had killed ...

Campaign Finance Follies

by Sheldon Richman October 2, 1997

Imagine you open a store fully stocked with goodies. Lo and behold, people show up with money eager to buy. Would you be surprised? Of course not. That is the sum total of what is called the campaign finance problem. Politicians have goodies, legislative favors, to sell, and people are eager to buy them with ...

Compromise and Concealment-The Road to Defeat, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1997

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 The libertarian philosophy holds that people should be free to do whatever they want, so long as their conduct is peaceful. Therefore, government's role in life should be limited to: (1) punishing people who initiate force against others ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 10: Austrian Business Cycle Theory and the Causes of the Great Depression

by Richard M. Ebeling October 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 | ...

Time to Bid the UN Farewell

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 1997

President Clinton has announced a renewed U.S. commitment to the United Nations. In his attempt to show American enthusiasm for the world organization, Clinton has promised that the United States will pay the $819 million it is said to owe and he supports expansion of the Security Council. It will be no surprise if Clinton ...

Property as the Key to Self-Determination

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 1997

In political philosophy, no concept is as controversial as property. It excites libertarians, repulses socialists, and leaves inconsistent statists ("liberals" and conservatives) confused. What is it about property that packs such power? To answer that question, it is important to realize that flawed political philosophy will lead to flawed notions of property. Good-faith socialists (those not motivated simply by envy) ...

The Energizer Leviathan: Still Growing and Growing

by James Bovard October 1, 1997

President Bill Clinton has repeatedly announced that "the era of big government is over." Many Republican congressmen have responded by laying down their ideological swords and pretending their work is done. But if freedom is to be revived in this country, Americans must begin paying less attention to the platitudes in politicians' speeches and more attention to the nasty ...