Government Should Ignore Gas Prices by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1996 Now, let's see if I have this straight: just as the economics textbooks say, when the demand for gasoline went up and the supply fell, the prices went up. So, the Clinton administration told the Department of Justice to investigate. Investigate what? It doesn't matter. Any time a politician wants to score ...
Repeal the Minimum Wage by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1996 To put it bluntly, given all the evidence we have about the destructive effects of the minimum wage law, anyone who still calls for an increase in it is either sadly lacking in economic education or is a demagogue. There's just no getting around the fact that if you use the ...
The Education Crisis Is Real by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1996 A recent book claims that the crisis in government school systems has been manufactured by the enemies of public education. Authors David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle think the widespread concern about what goes on in the schools is based on myth. Judge for yourself. At a school in ...
Escape from Responsibility by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1996 The welfare state teaches the implicit lesson that you are not responsible for yourself. You will be taken care of. The "safety net" will catch you if you fall. And because of that, you may be required to do certain things and prohibited from doing other things — all in the name of taking care of you and others. We ...
Subverting Freedom through Benevolence by James Bovard May 1, 1996 President Bill Clinton declared on July 26, 1994: "The Americans with Disabilities Act is a national monument to freedom. Contained within its broad pillars of independence, inclusion, and empowerment is the core ideal of equality that has defined this country since its beginnings." In reality, the ADA has become a symbol of the confused, paternalistic, interventionist concept of modern freedom ...
The Ramp to Hell by Karen Selick May 1, 1996 Perhaps the people who first dreamed up Ontario's Human Rights Code had good intentions, but as the old saying goes, that's what the road to hell is paved with. A recent decision of a Board of Inquiry shows just how far we've travelled down that road. The case involved a disabled woman who uses a ...
Book Review: The New Color Line by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 1996 The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy by Paul Craig Roberts & Lawrence M. Stratton (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1995) In 1944, Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal published a massive work entitled An American Dilemma . His thesis was that the United States was a fundamentally racist ...
April 15, Day of Infamy by Sheldon Richman April 15, 1996 April 15 is here again. For many people the day heralds a tax refund. But what are they celebrating? That they loaned the government money, interest-free, in 1995? Why is it that if the government doesn't withhold enough tax, you may owe interest, but if the government withholds too much, you get zip? Those are just ...
The Failure of the Republican “Revolution,” Part 3 by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 1996 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 The year 1913 was one of the most revolutionary years in American history. Two things dramatically changed the nature of American society and the philosophy of ...
If Liberty Mattered — Once More, a Presidential Candidate’s Press Conference, Part 3 by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 1996 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 Business Week: Mr. Candidate, with such outlandish ideas as abolishing the Federal Reserve System, can you really expect any support from members of the business community? Every country in the ...
Ideas on Liberty in the Strangest Places by Sheldon Richman April 1, 1996 Now and then something happens that makes you wonder if freedom's revolution isn't further along than we might think. Ideas about liberty can pop up in the strangest places. Here are some examples. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now ACORN calls itself the "largest low- and moderate-income membership organization in the country." As an outgrowth of the National ...
The Assault-Weapons Scam, Part 2 by James Bovard April 1, 1996 Part 1 | Part 2 The federal assault-weapons ban is widely perceived as a foot in the door to far more extensive gun bans. When a Christian Science Monitor reporter asked Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the lead sponsor of the bill, why her amendment did not ban all semiautomatic guns, Feinstein replied: "We couldn't have gotten ...