The Failure of Amtrak Reform by Gregory Bresiger November 1, 2005 End of the Line: The Failure of Amtrak Reform and the Future of America’s Passenger Trains by Joseph Vranich (American Enterprise Institute, 2004); 264 pages. With Amtrak officials’ recent threats to shut down unless Congress increases its subsidy and with the Acela fiasco, was there ever a more relevant book than End of the Line: The Failure of Amtrak Reform and the Future of America’s Passenger Trains, by Joseph Vranich? Yet End of the Line is no best-seller. Maybe that’s because it also seems to be an ignored book. Given Vranich’s thesis — Amtrak is hopeless and should be broken up — one would think that reviewers pro and con would be all over this book. The author is well qualified to give us the right book at the right time. He is an expert in high-speed rail transportation. He also happens to be a former Amtrak supporter who helped create this mess, which began back in 1970. That’s when President Richard ...
Gun Control: A Historical Perspective, Part 1 by Benedict D. LaRosa June 1, 1994 Part 1 | Part 2 Gun control is an issue which never stands on its own. By this I mean that the motives behind it are rarely those expressed by its advocates. There is almost always a hidden agenda. On rare occasion, those proposing the confiscation of weapons are candid about their motives. Such was the case in Japan in 1588 when the Shogun Hideyoshi disarmed the populace during what came to be called the Great Sword Hunt. He decreed: "The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to foment uprisings." The motivation behind gun control is much the same today; it's just that our politicians are not as candid as Hideyoshi. The Japanese populace has been disarmed ever since. The Anglo-American tradition is much different. But before I discuss ...
Time to Rethink the War on Drugs by David Boaz October 1, 1999 Eighty-four percent of Americans say that possible cocaine use in his 20s should not disqualify Texas governor George W. Bush from being president. But if a cocaine user can go on to be president, why should we put young people in jail for using cocaine? Maybe the voters' indifference to Bush's possible past indicates that people are ready for a more rational discussion of drug policy. The decisions of New Mexico's Republican governor, Gary Johnson, and Minnesota's Reform Party governor, Jesse Ventura, to discuss drug legalization are also signs of change. It's time for some common sense about the war on drugs. More than $30 billion is being spent annually on the drug war. One and a half million people are being arrested every year. But 78 million people say they have tried drugs, and 80 percent of teenagers say drugs are easy to obtain. Things are ...
Time to Rethink the War on Drugs by Future of Freedom Foundation March 25, 2010 Eighty-four percent of Americans say that possible cocaine use in his 20s should not disqualify Texas governor George W. Bush from being president. But if a cocaine user can go on to be president, why should we put young people in jail for using cocaine? Maybe the voters' indifference to Bush's possible past indicates that ...
The Second Amendment Protects an Individual Right by Benedict D. LaRosa January 1, 2001 THERE IS A popular misconception that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution refers to a collective right rather than an individual right. Both history and reason argue against this misinterpretation. The right to self- (and collective) defense does not originate with, nor is it dependent upon, the Second Amendment. Man has ...
Gun-Ban Shenanigans at the UN by James Bovard January 1, 2002 LAST JULY 9, the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects convened in New York. To celebrate the event, the UN and several member governments held public bonfires of guns. The mere sight of gun bonfires was supposed to somehow convince people that the United Nations would protect them. ...
The Gun-Control Tide Is Turning by Scott McPherson August 4, 2003 Advocates of the right to keep and bear arms have modest reason to celebrate these days. The state of Alaska recently became the second state, after Vermont, to allow citizens to carry concealed firearms without a permit or any of the restrictive measures, such as fingerprinting or background checks, ...
Gun Control: A Poor Substitute for Good Government by Scott McPherson February 1, 2004 Following the horrific mass murder of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in the spring of 1999, the anti-gun Left went into overdrive to pass further restrictions on Americans’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Their argument was that without access to guns ...
The NRA Gets It Wrong by Sheldon Richman August 24, 2005 The concept of individual rights really isn’t complicated, but even some of its defenders get it wrong. Take, for example, the National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA, of course, concentrates exclusively on the individual’s right to keep and bear arms, but that is no excuse for failing to ...
Bush’s Opium Boom by Future of Freedom Foundation March 25, 2010 Last year saw what is probably the single biggest one-year increase in opium production in world history. Since the Bush administration toppled the Taliban regime, opium production in Afghanistan has increased from 185 tons in 2001 to 3,700 tons in 2002 — an increase of twentyfold. Afghanistan has historically produced more than two-thirds of the world opium supply and ...
Leave Bill Bennett Alone by Scott McPherson May 9, 2003 Public revelations of former drug czar William J. Bennett’s penchant for high-stakes gambling has produced immediate reform for the Book of Virtues author: “It is true that I have gambled large sums of money.... I have done too much gambling, and this is not an example I wish to set. ...
Leave Bill Bennett Alone by Future of Freedom Foundation March 25, 2010 Public revelations of former drug czar William J. Bennett’s penchant for high-stakes gambling has produced immediate reform for the Book of Virtues author: “It is true that I have gambled large sums of money.... I have done too much gambling, and this is not an example I wish to set. ...
