Daily Articles

The Drug War vs. Public Health and Safety

by James Bovard June 1, 1997

Many Americans recognize that the drug war has jailed hundreds of thousands of people whose sole crime was to possess substances that politicians did not approve of. However, this is only the start of the casualty list of the drug war. Many other Americans have suffered who themselves had little or nothing to do with narcotics. Foolish drug regulations are ...

Repealing, Not Reforming, Social Security, Part 1

by Doug Bandow June 1, 1997

Part 1 | Part 2 Social Security may be the most important domestic issue in Washington today. Everyone in the nation's capital is for a balanced budget, or so it seems. Even if these most election-minded of politicos were serious, however, there would remain a rather serious fly in the ointment. Politicians preaching a balanced budget want us to believe ...

Book Review: Hungry Ghosts

by Richard M. Ebeling June 1, 1997

Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine by Jasper Becker (New York: Free Press, 1996); 352 pages; $25. In 1994, Mao Zedong's personal physician, Dr. Li Zhisui, published The Private Life of Chairman Mao. Leading experts on Chinese communist history say that the book is authentic and accurate. He served Mao from 1955 until ...

Taxes in the Electronic Global Market

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1997

A recent issue of The Economist proclaimed "the disappearing taxpayer." It acknowledged the difficulty governments are beginning to experience in taxing their citizens owing to two phenomena: the mobility of capital in the global marketplace and the shift of commerce to the Internet. The difficulty can only become ...

Vice President Chutzpah

by Sheldon Richman May 2, 1997

You'd think a little humility would have been in order. Asked to speak to a gathering of CEOs of some of the nation's most successful companies, Vice President Al Gore, who makes his living spending money people have no choice but to give him, lectured them about the need to make their employees happy. ...

A Vision of a Free Society, Part 4

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 1997

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 In a primitive, economically poor society, a person has to do a lot of basic jobs just to survive. He has to be a master of many trades. But as a society becomes wealthier and more complex, people begin to specialize at ...

Monetary Central Planning and the State, Part 5: The Austrian Economists on the Origin and Purchasing Power of Money

by Richard M. Ebeling May 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 Campaign Finance Red Herring

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1997

That campaign-finance nonsense is again on the public agenda. The recent episodes involving the Democratic National Committee, the White House, and House Speaker Newt Gingrich have renewed for the umpteenth time the calls for a drastic overhaul of how politics is funded in America. The DNC unilaterally announced it would ...

Should We Be Thankful for the FDA?

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1997

The television anchorman presented the news in an excited tone: "The Food and Drug today approved use of a new laser technology that will replace the drill at the dentist's office." According to the story, most patients tested with the new laser device needed no pain killer. The announcement must have been well-received by ...

Smoke If You Want, and Pay for It

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1997

Tobacco has become a four-letter word. The cigarette companies are getting it from all sides. The federal Food and Drug Administration wants to regulate tobacco as a drug. State governments are suing to recover Medicare money spent on elderly people with tobacco-related illnesses. Heirs of long-time smokers are suing for wrongful death. It's not ...

The Campaign Finance Red Herring [long]

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1997

Campaign-finance reform is again on the public agenda. The scandals involving the Democratic National Committee and the taint surrounding House Speaker Newt Gingrich have renewed for the umpteenth time the calls for a drastic overhaul of how politics is funded in America. The DNC unilaterally announced it would no longer take money from noncitizens or foreign corporations. It also ...

The Latest Gun Control Fiasco

by James Bovard May 1, 1997

The nation's police forces are up in arms over a new federal gun control law that could strip thousands of them of their guns and jobs. Most police organizations have enthusiastically supported every gun control scheme President Clinton has put forward. Few Americans realized that such legislation almost always contained an exemption for the policemen themselves regarding their official ...