Daily Articles

The War Crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1995

When U.S. military forces dropped atomic bombs on Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 275,000 men, women, and children were killed. Ever since, the killings have been justified by the claim that the bombings shortened the war and, therefore, saved the lives of American servicemen. Actually, the bombings constituted war crimes for which the perpetrators should have been tried and ...

Covering the Map of the World — The Half-Century Legacy of the Yalta Conference, Part 7

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1995

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 Franklin Roosevelt was fascinated by the communist experiment in Russia. In a conversation with Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins in 1933, FDR admitted: "I don't understand ...

World War I and the Great Departure, Part 2

by Wesley Allen Riddle September 1, 1995

Part 1 | Part 2 During World War 1, the persecution of Germans in American society was so pronounced that Germans were forced to abandon their language and customs, at least in public. German books were burned outside numerous libraries, while Beethoven was banned from symphonic repertories. The atmosphere was such that Germans hid the fact they were German ...

Conserving and Destroying

by Joseph Sobran September 1, 1995

In my thesaurus, "conserve" and "destroy" are antonyms. Why is it, then, that so any conservatives seem to relish war? I have known conservatives who have joked pleasantly about "nuking the chinks" or flattening Tehran. Jokes are jokes, but some conservatives took an actual delight in the Gulf War; there was some loose talk of bombing, and even nuking, ...

Dresden: Time to Say We’re Sorry

by Simon Jenkins September 1, 1995

As the U.S. Fifth Army inched its way up Italy in 1944, its command constantly pondered which towns should be spared bombardment. Monte Cassino was destroyed. The centers of Rome and Florence were saved. The Pieros of Sansepulcro were reprieved at the last minute (I believe by an art-loving gunner). These decisions were taken out of respect for the ...

Killing Noncombatants

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1995

In May 11, 1940, Great Britain made a fateful decision in its approach to fighting the second world war. On that night, eighteen Whitley bombers attacked railway installations in the placid west German province of Westphalia, far from the war front. That forgotten bombing raid, which in itself was inconsequential, has been called "the first deliberate breach of the ...

Book Review: The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, Vol. 9

by Richard M. Ebeling September 1, 1995

The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, Vol. 9: Contra Keynes and Cambridge, Essays and Correspondence edited by Bruce Caldwell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) 269 pages; $37.50. In 1941, American economist Kenneth Boulding reviewed Friedrich A. Hayek's The Pure Theory of Capital. He contrasted Hayek's views with those of John Maynard Keynes, and observed: "Mr. Keynes's economics of ... ...

Repatriation — The Dark Side of World War II, Part 6

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 1995

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 The U.S. government's cry to the American people during recent wars has been: "Support the troops." A person might disagree with the war itself. Or the president may have failed to secure the constitutionally ...

Covering the Map of the World — The Half-Century Legacy of the Yalta Conference, Part 6

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 1995

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 In 1940, the Japanese consul general in Harbin, Manchuria, intercepted several messages sent from the Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, to the Soviet ambassador in Tokyo. ...

The Power to Declare War — Who Speaks for the Constitution? Part 3

by Doug Bandow August 1, 1995

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The favorite justification for presidents unilaterally wandering off to war around the globe seems to be: everyone else does it. Proponents of executive war-making contend that ample precedents — two hundred or more troop deployments without congressional approval — exist for the president to act without a congressional declaration. Yet, ...

World War I and the Great Departure, Part 1

by Wesley Allen Riddle August 1, 1995

Part 1 | Part 2 The fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II has provided an occasion for revisiting the momentous events from 1939 to 1945 that reshaped the world. It may well be that this commemoration will lead to rediscoveries and new appreciation — the way the Bicentennial prompted popular and academic rediscovery of American tradition ...

Income Taxation

by Gerald F. Scully August 1, 1995

In 1913, the minimum marginal tax rate was 1 percent on income of $300,000 or more (measured in 1993 dollars). The top marginal tax rate was 7 percent on income above $7.5 million. Very few people had incomes that met the filing requirement. As a fraction of the ...