Archive for Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence Reed is the president of FEE.

Government Putts

Mark Twain once said that the game of golf was nothing more than “a good walk spoiled.” But to avid golfers, such impertinence obscures a cardinal truth: The sport is infinitely complex and not for everybody. Golf requires patience, concentration, and forbearance. Distractions must be ignored or compensated for by careful planning. A serious player [...]

1Aug2006 | | 3 comments | Continued

Free-Market Moments on the Silver Screen

If you believe in capitalism, going to the movies is all too often a painful exercise. Even those you expect to be apolitical turn up gratuitous dialogue that ped­dles Hollywood’s pervasive but infantile anti-market sentiments. Apparently there’s a lot of money to be made criticizing the very marketplace that enables even its most superficial critics [...]

1May2006 | | 5 comments | Continued

A Supreme Court to Be Proud Of

In the closing months of the current U.S. Supreme Court session, pundits of every stripe will be assessing the impact of recent changes in the Court’s composition. If the justices themselves are interested in how they measure up, there may be no better standard than the Court’s record under Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller. It’s a [...]

1Mar2006 | | 0 comments | Continued

Africans Whom Westerners Should Heed

At the G8 Summit in Scotland last July, hosted by Britains Tony Blair, European and North American politicians (all of them white) cried crocodile tears for the plight of black Africans. Echoing a gaggle of actors, rock stars, socialist ideologues, Third World dictators, and other learned economic-development
experts, they called for another transfer of wealth from developed nations to the undeveloped ones of Africawhich, by most measures, would seem to exclude no country on the continent.

1Dec2005 | | 1 comment | Continued

Presidents and Poverty

Conventional wisdom holds that fighting poverty
has only lately been a concern of American
presidents, and that before Franklin Roosevelt
it was hardly a concern at all. This stubborn error
persists.

1Oct2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

To Own or Be Owned: That Is the Question

In coming months, and probably years, President Bush’s “Ownership Society” proposals—in particular, his plans for personal accounts within Social Security, health savings accounts, and more school choice—will stimulate national discussion in directions politicians for decades have feared to tread. Whether you think the President’s specifics have merit or not, this development should be seen as [...]

1Jul2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

A Student’s Essay That Changed the World

As a former university professor, I read thousands of student-authored essays through the years—sometimes joyously, but probably just as often, painfully. Occasionally, the process of researching and writing exerted significant influence over a student’s future interests, thinking, and perhaps even behavior. But of all the student essays ever written anywhere, I doubt that any had [...]

1May2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

Detroit’s Flirtation with Economic Suicide

Until recently, I had thought the city of Detroit had done everything in its power to drive people and businesses away. I was wrong. From deep down in its barrel of apparently endless crackpot schemes, the Detroit city council pulled out one more. And what a piece of work it was—proof beyond the most shadowy [...]

1Mar2005 | | 1 comment | Continued

The Golden Calf of Democracy

“Democracy,” H. L. Mencken once said, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” He also famously defined an election as “an advance auction sale of stolen goods.” Mencken was not opposed to democracy. He simply possessed a more sobering view of its limitations [...]

1Dec2004 | | 0 comments | Continued

No More Czars, Please

For hard-pressed, taxpaying citizens who believe in limited government, April is not a favorite month. But something really good and worth noting happened a couple days before our taxes were due this year. On April 13 in Michigan, a Democratic governor chided a Republican legislature for trying to create a state “manufacturing czar.” In fact, [...]

1Oct2004 | | 1 comment | Continued

Telecom Regulations Don’t Create Competitive Markets

The author would like to thank Diane Katz, director of science, environment, and technology policy at the Mackinac Center, for her assistance in the preparation of this column. Few of us would understand the jargon employed in a recent ruling overturning telecommunications regulations issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). But it’s not necessary to [...]

1May2004 | | 1 comment | Continued

A Museum You Don’t Want to Miss

More than 150 years ago Karl Marx predicted that communism was inevitable. History, he claimed, was marching inexorably toward a communist paradise. In hindsight it would appear that if anything about communism was inevitable, it was that it would sooner or later be relegated to the status of museum relic. In the capital city of a formerly communist country in eastern Europe, that’s exactly what has happened.

1Mar2004 | | 1 comment | Continued

Alleviating the Organ Shortage

If Tocqueville were touring America today, he would surely cite a non-profit group known as LifeSharers as a superlative example of this penchant to solve problems through voluntary initiative. This group deserves special attention, and your support, because it deals with something as important as life itself. Moreover, it must overcome both law and conventional sentiments to do its good work.

1Dec2003 | | 3 comments | Continued

Joseph P. Overton: Character for a Free Society

A person’s character is nothing more and nothing less than the sum of his choices. You can’t choose your height or race or many other physical traits, but you fine-tune your character every time you distinguish right from wrong and act accordingly. Your character is further defined by how you choose to interact with others and the standards of speech and conduct you uphold.

1Oct2003 | | 1 comment | Continued

Lessons from the First Airplane

Mark your calendars! Prepare for commemorative events and feature stories in newspapers all across America. The date is December 17, 2003—the 100th anniversary of the first manned flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a feat engineered by two brothers named Wright. In one century the airplane went from a dream to a multibillion-dollar industry that [...]

1Jul2003 | | 0 comments | Continued

The True Meaning of Patriotism

Patriotism these days is like Christmas—lots of people caught up in a festive atmosphere replete with lights and spectacles. We hear reminders about “the true meaning” of Christmas—and we may even mutter a few guilt-ridden words to that effect ourselves—but each of us spends more time and thought in parties, gift-giving, and the other paraphernalia [...]

1Jun2003 | | 28 comments | Continued

Remembering Prague Spring

When the Eastern European empire of the Soviet Union melted away in 1989, and the Soviet Union itself dissolved two years later, wise observers noted that these developments hadn’t materialized overnight on their own. They were the result of critically important events that had punctuated seven decades of Soviet communism. The 35th anniversary of one [...]

1May2003 | | 1 comment | Continued
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