Perspective

Extortion in Port Chester

The least appreciated form of tyranny in the United States goes by the names “redevelopment” and “government-business partnership.” While everyone knows about the threat of development-oriented eminent domain, thanks to the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London, local tyranny goes much deeper than the “mere” taking of property in order to give [...]

1Mar2007 | | 0 comments | Continued

Trans-Fattened Government

So people dining out in New York City will be protected from unwittingly—or even wittingly—consuming foods containing trans fats. Trans fats are what you get with partially hydrogenated oils and shortenings, which keep foods like French fries from getting soggy and margarine solid at room temperature.  Trans fats will be banned in the city’s restaurants [...]

1Jan2007 | | 2 comments | Continued

Economists Against Economics

Five economists who either won the Nobel Prize in economics or who served as president of the American Economic Association—and three who did both—recently joined over 600 other economists in urging the federal government to increase the minimum wage. The signatures were gathered by the union-backed Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which unsurprisingly supports substantial government [...]

1Dec2006 | | 1 comment | Continued

Natural, Not National, Rights

Somewhere in my reading about immigration I encountered the deceptively simple point that it’s not immigration we should be talking about but migration. That’s another way of saying the focus has been on “us,” when it should be on the people coming to the United States. The discussion has proceeded as if they have no [...]

1Nov2006 | | 0 comments | Continued

Why Cut Taxes?

Judging by the popping corks at the White House, taxes are cut to increase government revenues so the budget deficit can be shrunk without reducing government spending. Tax cuts are good, but this reason leaves me cold. President Bush announced recently that “This economy is growing, federal taxes are rising, and we’re cutting the federal [...]

1Oct2006 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Governmental Habit

In 1977 the late economic historian Jonathan R. T. Hughes published a book called The Governmental Habit (updated in 1991 as The Governmental Habit Redux). It showed how pervasive government intervention in the economy has been since colonial times. The title captures an important phenomenon. People are in the habit of looking to government—the only [...]

1Sep2006 | | 0 comments | Continued

Cleaning Up After the Elephants

I detect a pattern in the challenges hurled at liberals on nearly every issue. The opponent of liberalism describes a problem, invariably with roots in a government infringement of freedom. In response, he prescribes more government interference with freedom, at which point the liberal interjects that the best and only just solution is the repeal [...]

1Aug2006 | | 0 comments | Continued

Jane Jacobs (1916-2006)

Through nearly a dozen books, Jane Jacobs made an indelible contribution to our understanding of what makes cities vibrant and what makes them dull. She struck heroic blows in defense of the underlying order of cities and against the pretensions of social engineering. Alas,she died April 25 at age 89.

1Jun2006 | | 0 comments | Continued

Legal Plunder Mislabeled “Defense”

Arnaud de Borchgrave of United Press Interna­tional has been reporting on national intelli­gence matters for many years. In a recent dispatch he wrote that “[s]ome 15,300 earmarks in the U.S. defense budget, up 1,300 percent in the 21st centu­ry, are so many pork projects for lawmakers’ constituen­cies that have nothing to do with defense.” That [...]

1May2006 | | 1 comment | Continued

Patently Unnecessary?

The idea that government should issue patents for inventions is odd on its face. How can someone claim an exclusive right in a “practical application” of nature’s principles? Of course, an inventor can have a right to an object. But a right to bar others from using the application embodied in that object? That’s hard [...]

1Apr2006 | | 1 comment | Continued

"Parent of the Country"

In November a federal appeals court rejected a
challenge to a school-district survey of elementaryschool
students that contained privacy-invading,
sexually explicit questions.The Palmdale School District
in Los Angeles County had conducted the survey of children
7 to 10 years old.Their parents were told they could opt out, but they were left in the dark about the content.According to the notice parents received, the survey aimed to establish a community baseline measure of childrens exposure to early trauma (for example, violence) and to identify internal behaviors such as anxiety and depression and external behaviors such as aggression and verbal abuse. It turned out that of the 79 questions asked, ten related to the childrens thoughts about sexual matters.

1Mar2006 | | 3 comments | Continued

Fifty Years Later

I saw my first copy of The Freeman sometime in 1967, most likely while I was still a senior in high school in Philadelphia. In those days, the magazine was almost pocket-size. A classmate showed me the issue and suggested I contact the Foundation for Economic Education for more. I had never heard that name [...]

1Jan2006 | | 0 comments | Continued

Bureaucracy Can’t Be Run Like a Business

John Tierney is an excellent columnist, by far the best on the New York Times op-ed page. He showed it last September when he contrasted Wal-Mart’s superlative emergency preparedness with the government’s horrible performance during Hurricane Katrina. As he wrote, Wal-Mart is “one of the few institutions to improve its image here after Katrina sent [...]

1Dec2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

One Size Fits Some

The nonhuman part of the world makes sense. I expect no less of the human part. So let’s explore the following true-life experience: You’re sitting in an airliner that has just landed and is taxiing to the gate. The flight attendant comes on the public-address system to say, “Welcome to New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Please [...]

1Nov2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

Hurricane Katrina: Government versus the Private Sector

If the “American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn’t be in this crisis.” Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, paraphrasing Sheriff Harry Lee during an interview on “Meet the Press,” got to the root of all that went wrong in the buildup to and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last August. “It’s [...]

1Oct2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

Property Protects

Opponents of authentic liberalism have long held that the state must be powerful enough to protect the powerless from the ravages of private property. The Supreme Court’s decision in the Kelo eminent-domain case last summer shows what that principle is worth. To recap, the city of New London, Connecticut, condemned 15 working-class homes for an [...]

1Sep2005 | | 0 comments | Continued

Pharmacists and Freedom

According to the newspapers, pharmacists throughout the United States are refusing to fill prescriptions for the “morning-after” pill and other contraceptives because of religious objections. This has caused some concern and has prompted at least one governor to intervene. Last spring Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich issued an emergency order requiring pharmacies to honor all prescriptions. [...]

1Jul2005 | | 0 comments | Continued
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