Archive for July, 2008
The Goal Is Freedom: Getting Rights Wrong
It's the Fourth of July, the
day we ought to contemplate and rejoice in Jefferson's radical declaration of
the “self-evident” truth that all individuals
are
equally endowed with “certain unalienable Rights, … among these … Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Alas, the day cannot be one
of unmitigated joy since we have again been reminded that the purported
protectors of our liberties have little understanding of those rights. We thus
live under constant threat from the very people who claim to protect us. As you might guess, I am
referring to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Second Amendment case, District
of Columbia v. Heller.
More . . .
A NEW article by Sheldon Richman
5Jul2008 | Paul A. Poirot | 0 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – July 2008
- A Farewell to Alms by Gregory Clark Reviewed by Gene Callahan
- Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don’t by John Lott Reviewed by Robert P. Murphy
- Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval that Inspired America’s Founding Fathers by Michael Barone Reviewed by Martin Morse Wooster
- Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into a Nation of Children David Harsanyi Reviewed by George Leef
The Fed Should Inflate to End the Financial Crisis?
The current housing and financial crisis has many people blaming “greed and market forces” for unleashing a panoply of evils on the unsuspecting middle class. This has led to many bad proposals to solve the crisis, such as the April 14 Wall Street Journal op-ed “The Inflation Solution to the Housing Mess” by John Makin, [...]
1Jul2008 | Ivan Pongracic Jr. | 0 comments | ContinuedHands Off “Windfall” Profits
You don’t have to like the oil companies to reject the windfall-profits tax. All you have to know is that if you tax something, you’ll get less of it. No one can seriously dispute this piece of common sense. That leaves the strong suspicion that the motive for the tax is punitive: those companies are [...]
1Jul2008 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedFreedom, Drugs, and the Workplace
Imagine that you work for an employer whom you respect, and you like your job. Then you find out that your employer uses marijuana for a medical condition. On further inquiry, you learn that he uses it completely legally and, as far as you can tell, it doesn’t affect his performance as an employer. Should [...]
1Jul2008 | David R. Henderson | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Conceit of the Regulators
Unless the government watches closely, the airlines will kill you. That seems to be what many reporters and politicians believe. “The result of inspection failures and enforcement failure [by the Federal Aviation Administration] has meant that aircraft have flown unsafe, un-airworthy and at risk of lives,” says Representative James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation [...]
1Jul2008 | John Stossel | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Recurring Crisis
Recently the governor of the Bank of England announced that the “nice” times had come to an end. (In the Bank’s lexicon, NICE = “Non-Inflationary Constant Expansion”). This news will not come as any shock to the many Americans who have had their homes repossessed recently, but it does appear to have startled many of [...]
1Jul2008 | Stephen Davies | 0 comments | ContinuedPsychiatry Versus Liberty
For millennia, slavery—involuntary servitude—was a universally accepted social institution. Today, psychiatric slavery—involuntary “treatment for mental illness”—is such an institution. Psychiatric incarceration and forced psychiatric treatment are integral parts of modern medical practice and social life. The libertarian philosophy of freedom is based on the premise that self-ownership is a basic right and that initiating violence [...]
1Jul2008 | Thomas S. Szasz M.D. | 1 comment | ContinuedCharacter, Liberty, and Economics
Over four decades I’ve written scores of articles, essays, and columns on economics; taught the subject at the university level; and given hundreds of speeches on it. In recent years the nexus between the economics of a free society and individual character has worked its way into my writing, speaking, and thinking with increasing emphasis. [...]
1Jul2008 | Lawrence W. Reed | 2 comments | ContinuedLibertarianism Through Thick and Thin
To what extent should libertarians concern themselves with social commitments, practices, projects, or movements that seek social outcomes beyond, or other than, the standard libertarian commitment to expanding the scope of freedom from government coercion? Clearly, a consistent and principled libertarian cannot support efforts or beliefs that are contrary to libertarian principles—such as efforts to [...]
1Jul2008 | Charles Johnson | 1 comment | ContinuedTorture and Liberty
Is torture compatible with liberty? Unfortunately, this is no longer a hypothetical question. Many Americans who claim to support individual freedom also favor permitting the government to torture suspected terrorists or other purported enemies of the United States. This controversy is reminiscent of a disagreement between the famous economists F. A. Hayek and John Maynard [...]
1Jul2008 | James Bovard | 0 comments | ContinuedGovernment Workers Are America’s New Elite
As a child, I would ask my mother on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day: “Why isn’t there a Children’s Day?” After she stopped laughing, Mom explained: “Every day is Children’s Day.” I didn’t understand the joke then, but now that I’m the father of three children, her answer makes perfect sense. I recalled that exchange [...]
1Jul2008 | Steven Greenhut | 2 comments | ContinuedBig Brother Is Watching as He’s Never Watched Before
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has installed millimeter-wave scanners at checkpoints in about a dozen airports nationwide. It’s threatening to inflict these gizmos on every commercial concourse in the country. Millimeter waves bombard passengers with beams that penetrate clothing to show the body beneath. Victims don’t undress: the rays do it for them so screeners [...]
1Jul2008 | Becky Akers | 2 comments | ContinuedOn Baseball and Capital Markets
Donald F. Grunewald is an attorney. Baseball is a game of rules. These rules are not excessively complex for the simple reason that overregulation and overspecification would hamper the enjoyment of the game. How so? Consider the placement of the defensive players. Other than the pitcher and catcher, who must stand at particular locations while [...]
1Jul2008 | Donald F. Grunewald | 0 comments | ContinuedNet Neutrality or Government Brutality?
Adam B. Summers is a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation. Over the past six years or so, network neutrality, or “net neutrality,” has risen from an obscure techie buzz phrase to a bona fide political issue and rallying cry for some strange political bedfellows. The current debate comprises competing views on economics, regulation, free [...]
1Jul2008 | Adam B. Summers | 4 comments | ContinuedToo Much Freedom
Roy Cordato is vice president for research and resident scholar at the John Locke Foundation in North Carolina. It’s been said that when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. For politicians, bureaucrats, and many activists, when the only tool they have is coercion, the cause of every [...]
1Jul2008 | Roy Cordato | 2 comments | ContinuedWhom Should We Thank for High Gas Prices?
I am writing this after having just filled my tank with gasoline at $3.99 per gallon. Oil is over $125 a barrel. Big Oil and their CEOs are the hands-down favorite to win the Snidely Whiplash People’s Choice Award. Since Big Oil is our favorite villain, no one really wants to hear about the other [...]
1Jul2008 | Michael Heberling | 0 comments | Continued-
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