Sheldon Richman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Sheldon Richman is editor of The Freeman, the magazine published by The Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York, senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, and a Research Fellow at The Independent Institute and a member of the Liberty and Power group weblog at the History News Network. ..."
"Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss", 11 Jan 2008 Related Topics: Politics, Voting Examines politics and explains why politicians cannot be expected to lead the way to liberty "Most people apparently like it that way. Politics is more like show-biz -- specifically, melodrama and soap opera -- than anything else. And people behave differently in the political realm than they do in the marketplace. (When was the last time you chose a car dealership because the salesman choked back tears on the thought he was losing your business?)"
A Bogus Libertarian Defense of War, Freedom Daily, Oct 2007 Related Topics: War, Randy E. Barnett, Murray N. Rothbard Examines Randy Barnett's Wall Street Journal article "Libertarians and the War" and a follow-up at the Volokh Conspiracy blog "... libertarian principles tell us that any response to a truly unprovoked attack must respect the rights of innocents. Actions that can be expected to harm people not involved in the original attack should be avoided. War must not be an occasion for dispensing with normal moral prohibitions. Those who disagree lose their standing to object to the murder of innocents on 9/11."
A Real Free Market Benefits Workers, Freedom Daily, Nov 2006 Related Topic: The Free Market "Considering that for a couple hundred years local, state, and federal governments in America have intervened in the economy largely in behalf of business interests, we may reply that whatever we call it, it is not a free market. If the outcome in recent years has been unfair (however that may be defined), then the blame is on government intervention."
Americans Should Be "Anti-American", 21 Jun 2006 Related Topics: United States, Imperialism "That leaves only one real object of foreign hostility, U.S. foreign policy. And let's face it, what's not to dislike? Since the end of World War II, a succession of American presidents and their diplomatic and military minions have treated much of the world like slow, pitiable stepchildren badly in need of their guidance."
An Unstimulating Idea, 25 Jan 2008 Related Topics: Government, The Free Market, No Free Lunch Examines the economic "stimulus" proposals being made by candidates and incumbent politicians "The most objectionable side of the stimulus frenzy is the assumption that government can and should run the economy. ... Most people still believe the economy is a vehicle and the government the driver, precisely adjusting the gas pedal and brake as needed. But really there is no 'economy.' There are only people pursuing ends and the property they use and exchange in the process. If the government tries to 'run the economy' it has to run us."
Atlas Shrugged and the Corporate State, 12 Oct 2007 Related Topic: The State Explains how Ayn Ran's Atlas Shrugged properly depicted some businessmen as privilege seekers "... liberty is threatened by business owners who seek privileges from the state in order to gain protection from open competition ... Those privileges ... encourage others to seek countervailing privileges. If businesses are protecting their market positions with protectionist licensing, taxes, regulations, subsidies, trade restrictions, patents, and the like, why shouldn't labor and other interest groups also seek protection?"
Bad Partisanship Drives Out Good, 30 Nov 2007 Related Topic: Politics Differentiates between superficial and profound partisanship (loyalty to a party vs. to a set of principles) and the goals of the Unity08 group "In my view, there can't be too much profound partisanship. Superficial partisanship distracts us from what we really should be arguing about. The proper question is not 'Who should lead?' but rather, 'What makes us think any political leader can make things better than people interacting freely can?'"
Beware Income-Tax Casuistry, Part 1, Freedom Daily, Aug 2006 Related Topic: Taxation "The tax (like all taxes) entails the threat of physical force against nonaggressors and is thus indistinguishable from robbery or extortion. ... In the most fundamental terms, the income tax is objectionable not because it's an income tax, but because it is an income tax. ... Frank Chodorov ... was wrong. It's not the income tax that is the root of all evil. It's taxation per se."
Beware Income-Tax Casuistry, Part 2, Freedom Daily, Sep 2006 Related Topics: Taxation, War "... landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895), paved the way for the Sixteenth Amendment. ... the Court concluded that a general tax on income, being indirect, was constitutional without apportionment among the states, but that a tax on income from real and personal property, being indistinguishable from a tax on the property itself, was direct taxation and thus required apportionment."
Beware Income-Tax Casuistry, Part 3, Freedom Daily, Oct 2006 Related Topics: Taxation, Constitution of the United States "Like it or not, the U.S. Constitution empowers the Congress to levy any tax it wants. You may read the Constitution otherwise, but the constitutionally endowed courts have spoken. Reading one's libertarian values into the Constitution in defiance of the text and court holdings is futile."
Bush's Doublethink, 19 Jan 2007 Related Topic: George W. Bush "Bush says what he needs to say in order to justify whatever it is he wants to do. The standard isn't truth and logic but appearance. ... Bush may practice Orwellian doublethink, the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at once, never letting himself see that both can't be true."
California's Blow Against Property Rights, Dec 1997 Related Topics: California, Property Rights "California likes its reputation as the trend-setter of the nation, but let's hope it won't be true this time. On New Year's Day, it will become the first state where smoking is forbidden in bars. Most people don't smoke, so they may be pleased with this news. But that would be short-sighted, indeed."
Democracy and Government Schools, Freedom Daily, Jan 2007 Related Topics: Educational Freedom, Democracy "A free market in education requires liberty on both the supply side and the demand side. Entrepreneurs have to be free to offer any education service, subject only to the verdict of parents, who in turn must be free to spend their own (not the taxpayers') money as they wish. Only under these circumstances are schools really accountable to the parents."
Economic Nationalism, Enemy of the People, 17 Nov 2006 Related Topic: Free Trade "... under free trade in a global economy people have to adjust to changing conditions. What's the alternative? Government policies to freeze the status quo in place? If that thinking had prevailed earlier, some of us would be poor farmers and blacksmiths today; the rest would not have been born. Moreover, disruptive change is not something only foreigners can cause."
Eminent-Domain Chutzpah, 30 Oct 2006 Related Topic: Eminent Domain Protections "The victims of eminent domain are usually working-class people who are forced to sacrifice their homes for the sake of luxury homes and shops. Sure, they get paid something, but it's not a true market price and some of these folks don't want to move at any price."
End Draft Registration!, 29 Dec 2006 Related Topic: War "Rangel says the draft would ensure that unpopular wars would provoke public opposition, as it eventually did in the Vietnam War. ... A far better way to enable people to effectively object to wars is the volunteer army. At the very least, a society with pretensions of freedom should recognize the right of people to abstain from fighting wars they disapprove of."
End the Other War Too, 1 Dec 2006 Related Topic: War on Drugs "The fact is, without the War on Drugs atrocities such as the killing of Kathryn Johnston wouldn't be happening. It is the very nature of victimless crimes that pushes the police to use unscrupulous tactics. In a victimless crime, such as an illegal drug transaction, there is no complaining witness, no one with an interest in reporting the crime to the police."
Examining Reagan’s Record on Free Trade, The Wall Street Journal, 10 May 1982 Related Topics: Free Trade, Ronald W. Reagan "Mr. Reagan wants to be known as a free-trader. Indeed, he lists as heroes some of history’s foremost free-traders: Frederic Bastiat, Richard Cobden, Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek, all of whom would find import quotas odious. ... How ironic that Mr. Reagan, admirer of free-traders, has yet to discover the senseless self-deprivation of protectionism and the imperative of immediate elimination of U.S. trade barriers."
Extortion in Port Chester, 5 Jan 2007 Related Topic: Property Rights "Local planning entities and politically connected developers have been running roughshod over property rights for years. It has become so common that it's hardly controversial anymore. It's just the way things are done. Most people think economic development couldn't happen without such practices."
Fear Not China, 8 Jun 2005 Related Topic: China "Economically, the Chinese are freer than they used to be. Chinese entrepreneurs can raise capital, and foreigners can invest their money, to create productive enterprises. ... the U.S. government [is] the one engaging in deficit spending and selling Treasury bills to the Chinese. If none were sold, none could be bought."
Free Cory Maye, Freedom Daily, May 2006 Related Topics: War on Drugs, Foreign Entanglements, Right to Trial by Jury "Such tragic events will keep occurring as long as the government asserts power to determine what we may and may not ingest. In a truly free society it would have no such power. Individual rights include the right to take any peaceful action, no matter how ill-advised. ,,, When government enforces laws against consensual activities, police terror is inevitable."
Full Context [PDF], The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, Apr 2006 Related Topics: The Free Market, Adam Smith Explains why it is essential to be aware that the existing corporatist economy does not equate to the free market "What today is called rent-seeking, exploiting others through political means, was as common in earlier times as it is now. It was a rare business proprietor who favored laissez faire. ... Most business people were uninterested in moral philosophy, economic theory, and ideology. ... No knowledgeable champion of free markets will be surprised by any of this."
GOP, R.I.P?, 11 Feb 2008 Related Topics: Republican Party, John McCain Reviews conservatives' criticisms of John McCain and what it means for the Republican Party "Who, then, can fault the conservatives for their opposition to McCain? Is no principle important enough to stand by it, even at the cost of electoral defeat? ... I agree with the conservatives in this respect: a Republican party that nominates John McCain for president is unfit to exist. The sooner it is demolished, the better."
Government Failure, 5 Oct 2007 Related Topic: Government Examines the validity of the concept of "market failures" as an argument for government intervention "... it is fallacy to assert that any time the market is expected to generate suboptimal results, government should step in. Why is that a fallacy? Because it assumes that the results of government preemption would be superior to whatever results the market would have produced. But that cannot be assumed. It has to be proved. And it has not been."
Government Keeps People Poor, 28 Jun 2006 Related Topic: Government "... low-income people pay various taxes ... government does many things that make the cost of living higher ... government occupational licensing is a devastating one-two punch against low-income people ... government has steadily eroded the value of the dollar ... minimum-wage prices low-skilled workers out of the labor market ..."
Government the Exploiter, Not Protector, 14 Jul 2006 Related Topics: Government, September 11, 2001 "None of the governments we are familiar with was established primarily to protect the general population. Rather, they were set up to enable a privileged class to extract wealth from the general population. They taxed the people to provide subsidies and restricted trade to create monopoly advantage."
Hidden Government, 1 Sep 2006 Related Topics: Government, George W. Bush, Lebanon "Were the American people informed that 'their' government was playing this role? Were they asked for their consent? Would they have approved? That the questions sound absurd demonstrates how far removed government is from the people who are supposedly sovereign in the American system."
History Lesson Lost, 6 Oct 2006 Related Topic: Constitution of the United States "The Articles of Confederation, Jensen writes, were the radicals' triumph over the conservatives in the Continental Congress ... But the conservatives did not give up their nationalist aspirations. After years of denigrating the confederation and attempting to amend the Articles, they finally got their way in 1787 and used the Constitutional Convention to scrap them in favor of a strong central government."
Imperial Hopefuls, 22 Feb 2007 Related Topic: Imperialism "The U.S. government has been building an empire for decades. ... the underlying theme has been ...: America, because it is exceptionally enlightened and has been anointed by history, must lead the world. To do so it must maintain a worldwide network of political and economic interests, client states, and allies. Those interests must be continuously protected and nurtured ..."
Individual Rights or Civil Rights?, Freedom Daily, Dec 1995 Related Topic: Freedom of Association "We ... have a clash ... On the one side is the alleged right not to be discriminated against. On the other is the right to freedom of association. ... If freedom of association reigns, an individual has a right to associate or not associate using any standard he pleases. But if the right not to be discriminated against reigns, such freedom ... cannot be allowed."
Iraqi Death by Political Abstraction, 5 Jun 2006 Related Topics: Haditha Massacre, Personal Responsibility, Leonard E. Read "So who is ultimately responsible for the massacre of the 24 unarmed Iraqis at Haditha? ... Many things about war are uncertain, but one thing we know for sure: men of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, would not be under investigation for cold-blooded murder had they never left Camp Pendleton in southern California."
Is Any War Civil?, 4 Dec 2001 Related Topics: Iraq War (2003), American War Between the States "Whether Iraq is embroiled in a civil war is a matter of some controversy. ... If President Bush admits we have a civil war on our hands, the American people will (1) know that the Bush doctrine is a big flop, and (2) wonder why we should stay in Iraq. So what sounds like a debate over semantics is really a matter of politics. "
Is Free Trade Obsolete? Part 1, Freedom Daily, Apr 2004 Related Topics: Free Trade, Law of Comparative Advantage, Paul Craig Roberts "... trade makes them both better off .... The people of a country will not find it to their interest to make everything they want, because to do so they would have to divert resources from activities in which they have a greater advantage."
Is Free Trade Obsolete? Part 2, Freedom Daily, May 2004 Related Topics: Free Trade, Law of Comparative Advantage, Paul Craig Roberts "Americans now face new competition in lines of work that were formerly sheltered ... by foreign tyranny. ... Americans can ... arrogantly claim that high-tech jobs belong to Americans, and lobby for protectionism ... Or they can lobby for an end to the mixed economy that holds down investment and wealth creation."
Is This Really War?, 16 Jun 2006 Related Topics: Iraq War (2003), George W. Bush, Haditha Massacre "One could argue that American forces were at war ... when they first invaded Iraq and sought to unseat the regime of Saddam Hussein. But after the government fell, was it still war? Or was it simply an occupation in which foreign troops sought to maintain order and suppress any resistance to the invaders and the government it helped to establish?"
It's Not War, 9 Oct 2006 Related Topic: Terrorism "America is not under siege. There is no threat to its integrity as a society. No barbarians stand at the gates ready to overrun and subjugate us. What we call terrorism is not war, but criminal action. It becomes war only if we make it so. But war exacts a terrible cost on the country that prosecutes it."
Jane Jacobs: The Spontaneity of Cities, Freedom Daily, Jul 2006 Related Topic: Jane Jacobs "She was truly a remarkable woman. With no more than a high-school diploma, but also a keen eye for what other people miss and the ability to turn a phrase, she single-handedly demolished orthodox urban planning in the United States. To the 'planner knows best' advocates she responded, People living their everyday lives know better."
Know When to Fold 'Em, 19 Feb 2007 Related Topic: Iraq War (2003) "Guerrilla warriors have many times humbled great powers. The Shias and Sunnis in Iraq are highly motivated, and they have the home-field advantage. ... Bravado and messianism won't turn the loss in Iraq into a win. Bush, McCain, and the other hawks should know when to fold. A defeat for them would be the real victory for America."
Libertarianism: Left or Right?, Freedom Daily, Jun 2007 Related Topics: Libertarianism, Murray N. Rothbard Makes the case that libertarianism is properly on the Left of the polical spectrum "Left and Right did not refer merely to which side of the assembly one sat on or one's attitude toward the regime. ... The Left understood that historically the state was the most powerful engine of exploitation ... Libertarians also showed their Left colors by opposing imperialism, war, and the accompanying violations of civil liberties ..."
More Bush Insults, 12 Oct 2005 Related Topic: George W. Bush "Everybody is good at something, and George Bush is good at insulting our intelligence. ... To be fair, we can't be sure if Bush presumes we are morons or if he is sincerely ignorant. For Muslims, Arabs, and many Americans, U.S. intervention in Iraq had been an issue for 10 years before September 11, 2001."
More Drug-War Victims, 28 Dec 2005 Related Topic: War on Drugs "Nothing is more corrupt than the police-informant relationship in drug enforcement. Countless times informants have fingered innocent people ... Drug raids are notorious for leading to the deaths of people, often cases of mistaken identity, who tried to defend themselves against late-night visits from militarized SWAT teams."
More Victims of Immigration Control, 18 Jan 2008 Related Topics: Eminent Domain Protections, Private Property Discusses how employers and property owners along the U.S.-Mexico border are also victims of immigration control "Eminent domain is the doctrine that government is the ultimate landlord of the country and people hold their property at the pleasure of the state. If it wants the land, it can take it. To be sure, the Constitution says it has to pay for the land. But there can be no 'just compensation' in a forced sale. What makes compensation just is consent, which is absent with eminent domain."
Mr. Bush, Mind Your Own Business, 21 Oct 2005 Related Topics: The Free Market, George W. Bush "The test of a free-market advocate is how he reacts during a sudden fall in supply of a widely used product. The phony is easily spotted. He's the one urging conservation and, perhaps, positive government measures to increase supply. In contrast, the genuine marketeer looks for the ways government intervention is stifling entrepreneurship. "
No Right to Remain Silent, 25 Jun 2004 Related Topics: Right Against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures, Right Against Self-Incrimination "Nevada and 20 other states have criminalized remaining silent in the face of a policeman's question 'What's your name?' By a 5-4 vote the U.S. Supreme Court said that's okay — it's no violation of the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches or the Fifth Amendment prohibition against compulsory self-incrimination."
One Hundred Years in Iraq?, 4 Apr 2008 Related Topics: John McCain, Iraq Analyzes John McCain's comment about staying in Iraq for 100 or more years and his previous comments on the occupation "Oddly, last November McCain seemed to understand the implications of a long-term occupation when he appeared on Charlie Rose's television program and expressed opposition to a long-term occupation even if there were no casualties. ... McCain seems to be saying that the Iraqis will never accept a U.S force and that therefore America perhaps could never count on an occupation without casualties ..."
Our Elective Monarchy, 16 Jun 2004 Related Topics: United States, United States Presidents, United Kingdom "Great Britain's government is a parliamentary system under a monarchy. Thus the head of state and the head of government are different people. ... The Parliament's vigorous questioning of the prime minister is the most public manifestation of this feature of the British government. ... notwithstanding the jabber about 'of the people, by the people, for the people,' the State is in charge. ... What we [Americans] have is an elective monarch who, if we are to believe the current wearer of the crown, rules by divine right."
Our Patience on Iraq Should Be Exhausted, 4 Apr 2007 Related Topics: Iraq War (2003), Imperialism "... the big picture is getting lost. Even most war critics in Congress seem to not fully see it. They routinely criticize the Bush administration for its incompetent execution of the war, but by doing so they have dropped the more important ball: regardless of how the war is being run, the invasion was illegal, unconstitutional, and contrary to the interests of the American people."
Outsourcing Torture, 29 Sep 2006 Related Topic: George W. Bush "If you want to see the bare essence of the Bush administration, behold its policy of 'rendition.' ... Can anyone with a sense of justice or humane bone in his body defend such a shameful policy? ... This is America under George W. Bush. It's not the America we learned about growing up. Something has gone badly wrong. When will we do something about it?"
Page Scandal: Political Corruption Precedes Sexual Corruption, 25 Oct 2006 Related Topic: Mark Foley "When Foley got sexually explicit with one former page, the young man was afraid to ask him to stop. ... But he never reported Foley. He said, 'I figured maybe someday I will want to be involved in Congress. I didn't want to make an enemy.' ... The Foley scandal is instructive because it exposes the risks that young people take whenever they go to Washington to work in the seat of power."
Pathetic Arguments for Foreign Intervention, 25 Jan 2008 Related Topics: Foreign Entanglements, Libertarianism Discusses comments made by Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal about Ron Paul's call for U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East "For decades U.S. presidents have sought to manage the world in behalf of what they call 'American interests,' and all it has brought is death, mayhem, anti-Americanism, and a price tag that would blow the average citizen's mind if he fully grasped it."
Pentagon Conduits, 25 Apr 2008 Related Topics: Military Industrial Complex, Freedom of the Press Discusses the revelations about TV news analysts connected to the Pentagon and to military contractors "A retired general representing or wishing to represent a military contractor has no better credential than access to insider briefings about current operations. To lose that access is to lose one's livelihood. Thus the Pentagon's plan worked. Disguised as objective analysts, the Defense Department's mouthpieces faithfully delivered the administration's propaganda."
Pleasing Consumers Isn't Easy, 12 Jan 2007 Related Topic: Entrepreneurship "For an entrepreneur, it's a little like stumbling around in the dark. Particularly with cutting-edge hi-tech products, entrepreneurs can't always see the obstacles to success. ... That's where entrepreneurial risk comes in. The daring business people won't know what we consumers want until we are given the choice. Meanwhile, big bucks ride on our decisions."
Political Science, 18 May 2007 Related Topics: Politics, Ethics, Private Property Reviews Frank Van Dun's 1986 paper titled "Economics and the Limits of Value-Free Science" and its implications for making an objective case for ethics, freedom and private property "This brings us to political theory and the objective case for freedom. ... This has serious implications at the social and political level ... a truth seeker cannot advocate any political system that imposes limits on peaceful action and thought -- that is, which sanctions the initiation of force -- without implicitly contradicting herself."
Preventing Opposition to War, 13 Apr 2007 Related Topics: War, The State "War can be highly useful to this cause because in time the taxpayers may begin to catch on to the scam that drains their wealth. If they can be made to fear that an external enemy threatens their safety, they will happily trust their rulers with more power and money and ignore the occasional overt corruption. Nothing better serves this purpose than a foreign war."
Profiting from Misfortune, 5 Oct 2005 Related Topic: Prices "Prices are not determined by past costs. ... To replace the gas sold today, the station will have to pay the new higher price. That fact will and should influence his conduct, not yesterday's price, which has no relevance today whatsoever. ... ask yourself whether you intend to sell your home for the price you paid rather than the higher price you might be able to get."
Pundit in Wonderland, 28 Sep 2007 Related Topic: The Free Market Critiques a Washington Post op-ed about the supposed increase in the "have-nots" in American society "We can expect the widest diffusion of wealth in a truly free market because government wouldn't be discouraging production or granting privileges to the well-connected. Working people, who often feel they are without economic power, would have maximum bargaining clout if government kept hands off. Clout comes from having alternatives, and government intervention reduces alternatives, including self-employment options."
Rule of Law Damaged by Schiavo Bill, 23 Mar 2005 Related Topic: Rule of Law "Congress has no constitutional authority to exercise arbitrary power any time an emergency catches its attention, especially where there are no federal or constitutional issues at stake. That it is legally restrained from doing whatever it wants is part of what we mean by the rule of law."
Self-Deception about Medical Care, 15 Feb 2006 Related Topics: Health Care, Government "Long before there was Medicare and Medicaid, many people of modest and low income received decent medical care through fraternal organizations. Lodges would sign contracts with doctors, in effect buying services in bulk that ... would be distributed to members and their families at affordable prices."
Social Security Has to Go, Freedom Daily, Jan 1998 Related Topic: Social Security Tax "The Social Security "trust fund" has nothing in it but bonds that need not be repaid and that can only be paid by additional taxation. ... When the surplus is gone, the fraud will be exposed. ... The government makes it look like an employer contribution to keep you from getting mad."
Stop Them! Related Topics: Writ of Habeas Corpus, Constitution of the United States "... the Democrats who now control Congress ... could start by passing a bill introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter to repeal the habeas-corpus section of the Military Commissions Act, the infamous law that lets the president seize noncitizens anywhere in the world, proclaim them suspected terrorists, hold them indefinitely without access to the courts, and even send them off to foreign torture chambers."
Take the Constitution Seriously in the Second Term, 8 Nov 2004 Related Topic: Constitution of the United States "According to the Constitution the presidency is a modest office. The powers are rather few. ... he executes the laws passed by Congress, which is also bound by a small number of powers. The president can spend money only as appropriated by Congress. ... He is not our commander in chief, as people seem to believe ..."
Tear Down the Trade Walls, 22 Apr 2005 Related Topics: Free Trade, Ukraine "When cheap steel comes in from foreign countries, it may cost American steel makers business, but it helps American steel users, such as the auto makers, to be more competitive. Conversely, a trade barrier that reduces foreign sales reduces the number of dollars foreigners have with which to buy American products."
Thank You, Milton Friedman, 20 Nov 2006 Related Topic: Milton Friedman "And speaking of courage, Milton Friedman was an indispensable part of the effort to end the military draft in the 1970s. At the height of the Vietnam War, when the government was forcing young men to fight, kill, and die thousands of miles from home ..., Friedman put his prestige on the line and demanded that conscription be stopped."
That Mercantilist Commerce Clause, 11 May 2007 Related Topic: Commerce Clause Reviews the paper "The Panda's Thumb: The Modest and Mercantilist:Original Meaning of the Commerce Clause" by Prof. Calvin Johnson "The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution has been used to justify a wide expansion of government power, from antidiscrimination laws to drug prohibition to a ban on guns near schools. ... Johnson documents that Federalists and Anti-federalists alike feared trade imbalances, the loss of gold and silver, and the importation of luxury goods. They were, at bottom, mercantilists."
The Bright Side of War, 24 May 2004 Related Topics: War, Claude Frederic Bastiat, Broken Window Fallacy "... the idea that war creates prosperity is emphatically not true. ... The real cost of the war is the wealth we are compelled to forgo. ... Even truly defensive wars entail destruction, not production."
The Chavez Tragedy, Freedom Daily, Mar 2001 Related Topic: Freedom of Association "The same folks who rhapsodize about freedom of association went berserk at Chavez's benevolent act. ... The immigration issue, freed of its grandiloquent pronouncements about national sovereignty, is nothing more than a matter of freedom of association. Chavez violated no one's rights by what she did."
The Constitution Within, 18 Aug 2006 Related Topic: James Madison "When strict constructionists appeal to original meaning or intent, which meaning or intent have they in mind? And which counts more: what was said during deliberations over the text or what was said in newspaper articles designed to win public support for the Constitution? Is Madison a reliable ally to be cited with confidence?"
The Constitution or Liberty, 7 Dec 2007 Related Topics: Enumerated Powers, James Madison, Reserved Powers Contrasts Article II of the Articles of Confederation with the Tenth Amendment and Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, and discusses the implied powers of the latter document "Last year Professor Calvin H. Johnson of the University of Texas Law School published an illuminating paper titled 'The Dubious Enumerated Power Doctrine' ... Johnson presents formidable evidence that the framers had no intention of limiting the national government's powers to the 16 items listed in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution."
The Crazy Arithmetic of Voting, 8 Feb 2008 Related Topics: Voting, Democracy Reviews the "Voting Versus the Market" chapter of Bruno Leoni's Freedom and the Law "I like Wheaties more than Cheerios. So I go to the store and buy Wheaties. Except for the rare occasion went the store has run out, I will bring home Wheaties. ... If I vote for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, I have to wait to see if I am in the majority before I know if I get what I want. If 50 percent plus one voted as I did, great -- I get my choice. But what if 50 percent plus one vote for Sen. Clinton? I'm out in the cold."
The Price of Empire, 26 Apr 2006 Related Topics: Imperialism, Peru, War on Drugs "Empire — sorry, benevolent hegemony — has its price. Terrorism is one. Every empire in history probably had terrorism directed at it, because it's one of the few weapons available to relatively weak nonstate adversaries. Another, less dramatic price is the determination of other countries' rulers to go their separate ways."
The Reagan Record On Trade: Rhetoric Vs. Reality, Cato Policy Analysis No. 107, 30 May 1988 Related Topics: Free Trade, Ronald W. Reagan "People tend to be implicit free traders and explicit protectionists. When they shop, they buy what best satisfies them in quality and price without regard to national origin ... But when people talk about world trade, they become protectionists ... A president truly committed to free trade would have exerted his influence to show why the implicit free traders are right and the explicit protectionists are wrong."
The Repudiation of Bush, 10 Nov 2006 Related Topics: George W. Bush, Democratic Party "It's reasonable to conclude from the election results that most voters felt the Republicans had been in power too long. ... all culminated in a thunderous repudiation of President Bush and the Republican Party. ... The voters might have thrown Bush out of office if they had the chance. Maybe that knowledge will motivate the president to begin undoing his many mistakes."
The Social Security Fraud, Freedom Daily, Sep 2001 Related Topic: Social Security Tax "Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill ... had the temerity to say that the Social Security Trust Fund has no tangible assets. ... O’Neill is right. The Trust Fund is a figment of our collective imagination. ... From the start, Social Security propagandists wanted us to think that the money we 'contribute' is put away for us individually ..."
The Supreme Court Repeals the Constitution, 8 Jul 2005 Related Topics: Eminent Domain Protections, Constitution of the United States "As a matter of law, this principle is a vestige of absolute monarchy and is contrary to the libertarian spirit of the American founding. As a matter of logic, no 'just compensation' is possible in a forced sale of property, because the only just price is the one freely negotiated by seller and buyer."
Thinking about Foreign Policy, Freedom Daily, Dec 2006 Related Topics: Foreign Entanglements, The State, Taxation "America' s geographic position and wealth made nonintervention highly practicable and low-risk, yet successive governments refused to abstain from meddling in foreign affairs, which served only to endanger the people they claimed to protect. Keeping in mind the full context of how foreign policy is formulated, we can easily see through the popular fallacies that undermine so much thinking about war and peace."
U.S. Hypocrisy on Iran, 14 Feb 2007 Related Topic: Iran "Surely he has read about Operation Ajax, in which the CIA's Kermit Roosevelt Jr., grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, and Norman Schwarzkopf Sr., father of the 1991 Gulf War general, conspired in 1953, along with British intelligence, to overthrow the democratically elected, though socialist, government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and restore the despotic shah to his Peacock Throne."
Vouchers or School Choice?, 12 Nov 2007 Related Topic: Educational Freedom Examines the recent school vouchers vote in Utah and explains how only education entrepreneurs, free from government interference, can provide real choice and innovation "The way to create school choice is not to give the state more excuses to regulate the private schools. That's what vouchers would do. Look at the failed Utah initiative. It would have required private schools to 'give a formal national test every year' to students. ... That would limit innovation and make the private schools more like the public schools. Some choice."
Washington Logic, 22 Sep 2006 Related Topics: Washington, DC, Government, Politics, Taxation "Washington is a funny place, with its own unique 'logic.' It's a 'company' town, the 'company' being the federal government, the 'product' being public policy. ... If you sense something screwy about this story, it's only because you are not using Washington logic. Elsewhere, the negation of a true statement is false. ... But things are different in Washington."
We Aren't Children, Nov 2001 Related Topics: Prohibition, Arkansas "This is the phenomenon that economist Bruce Yandle calls 'Baptists and bootleggers.' It refers to the alliance inevitably struck between those who oppose some consensual activity for moralistic reasons and those who oppose it out of economic interest. Thus both the Baptists and the bootleggers favored Prohibition ..."
What Exactly Did Gerald Ford Heal?, 5 Jan 2007 Related Topics: Gerald Ford, Government, Richard M. Nixon "'The long national nightmare is over,' Ford said. But it wasn't a nightmare for the American people. It was a nightmare for the power elite. Their very legitimacy was in peril. The debt to Ford for restoring their legitimacy is owed by those who hold and aspire to power, not by those who suffer under it."
What Is the Constitution?, Freedom Daily, Jun 2002 Related Topics: Reserved Powers, Constitution of the United States "When someone proposes that the federal government do something, the first question ... is whether that power would violate any provision of the Bill of Rights ... One side urges a strict construction ... The other major side urges a looser interpretation ... The list of powers is a secondary consideration ... that is not how the Constitution was supposed to work."
What Is the Enemy?, Freedom Daily, Apr 2006 Related Topics: Socialism, Free Markets "Which kind of state socialism is the greatest threat? ... the major receivers of largess, and the main proponents of government expansion, will be businessmen. In other words, the great threat to liberty is the corporate state, otherwise known as corporatism, state capitalism, and political capitalism."
What's to Lose, 20 Apr 2007 Related Topic: Iraq War (2003) "What would an American defeat in Iraq mean? Would evil Iraqis conquer the United States, force us all to speak Arabic, and convert us to Islam? Hardly. There is no threat whatsoever to the American people from the sectarian fighters in Baghdad or elsewhere in that country. ... If anything holds the disparate Sunni factions together, it's their common animosity to the U.S. occupation."
What’s Wrong with Public Schools?, Separating School & State, 25 Mar 2005 Related Topics: Educational Freedom, Taxation Excerpt from chapter 2 "In a private education market, parents, if need be, could even send their children to one school to study French and to another to study math. The market is the most flexible arrangement for satisfying consumers that can be imagined. It is precisely that flexibility that is missing in bureaucracy, whether controlled democratically or not."
Where Free-Market Economists Go Wrong, 1 Feb 2008 Related Topic: Corporatism Discusses the economic stimulus proposals and the failure of many free-market economists to point out that the current economic system is not truly a free market "What we have is corporatism, an interventionist system shot through with government-granted privileges mostly for the well-connected (yes, who tend to be rich). This system is maintained in a variety of ways: through taxes, subsidies, cartelizing regulations, 'intellectual property' protections, trade restrictions, government-bank collusion, the military-industrial complex, land close-offs, restrictions on workers, and more. As a result, people can get rich at the expense of the government's victims."
Where Is the Constitution?, 28 Jul 2006 Related Topic: Constitution of the United States "Thus words faithfully recited, or inscribed on parchment and hung in the National Archives, will never be enough to assure liberty. ... If liberty and free markets are to be established, government power must be rolled back. And if government power is to be rolled back, the real constitution -- people's hearts and minds -- must be pro-liberty. The other Constitution will follow."
Why They Hate Us, Freedom Daily, Feb 2008 Related Topics: United States, Imperialism, Terrorism Examines the myth that the United States is hated because Americans "are free and represent democracy" "American foreign policy has treated foreign populations like garbage, beginning with the brutal repression of the Filipino uprising against American colonial rule from 1899 to 1902. ... Since that time American presidents have intervened, directly or by proxy, in countless places, including Cuba, Haiti, Colombia (Panama), Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq, Guatemala, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan."
Woodstock May Have Saved Sen. McCain's Life, 7 Nov 2007 Related Topic: Vietnam War Discusses John McCain's comment regarding Hillary Clinton's proposal for funding a Woodstock museum "While McCain undoubtedly suffered beyond imagination, the full context of his situation needs to be maintained. ... He and his defenders would respond that he was serving his country and protecting Americans' freedom. He wasn't. North Vietnam never attacked the American people. The public was told it had attacked an American warship in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, but the U.S. government knew that was not true."
Milton Friedman (1912-2006), by Richard M. Ebeling, Sheldon Richman, 17 Nov 2006 Related Topic: Milton Friedman "At a time when popular writing that went against the collectivist grain had few mass outlets, Friedman managed to reach a wide audience with his clear and good natured-style. He accomplished this through many books, a long-running Newsweek column, and his 1980 television series, 'Free to Choose,' based on his bestselling book of the same title. "
The State of Humanity: Good and Getting Better, by Julian L. Simon, Sheldon Richman, 11 Nov 1996 "... amazingly, all the historical evidence shows that raw materials —all of them, even oil— have become more abundant rather than less. ... The ultimate resource is people —especially skilled, spirited and hopeful young people endowed with liberty— who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit and inevitably benefit the rest of us as well."
War as Government Program, 3 Jun 2007 Related Topic: War Speech the Future of Freedom Foundation's conference "Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties"
