All Posts Tagged With: "force"
The Age of the Busybody
Busybodies. In an earlier, gentler time, every neighborhood had one. Predominantly but not exclusively female in those days, the local busybody was recognized with ease. Although the verb was mercifully unknown, she micromanaged all PTA meetings, gatherings, sales, and affairs whether or not she was chairman or even occupied a seat on the governing board. [...]
30Nov2011 | Ridgway K. Foley Jr. | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Universal Hunger for Liberty: Why the Clash of Civilizations Is Not Inevitable
The free society is a frail and demanding institutional order. It requires that men resist the temptation to violate the freedom of others who may act and speak in disagreeable or fundamentally wrong ways. It is far easier to advocate or use force to prevent them from doing so. To get others through noncoercive means [...]
8Jul2010 | Richard M. Ebeling | 1 comment | ContinuedHerbert Spencer: Libertarian Prophet
At the time of his death a century ago, the English social theorist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was widely considered one of the most significant thinkers of his era, a scholar of encyclopedic learning and enormous vision whose works formed a regular part of university curricula in philosophy and the social sciences. Today he is seldom [...]
7Jul2010 | Roderick T. Long | 5 comments | ContinuedFiscal Force
I know ev’rybody earns; And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns;” —W. S. Gilbert, Princess Ida April is the cruellest month, for reasons other than what T. S. Eliot had in mind. This is the month in which you must account for yourself to Caesar. The authorities, having relieved you of a goodly [...]
1Jul2010 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedWhat’s Sauce for the Goose…
Supporters of Barack Obama’s pro-industry health insurance overhaul are absolutely right to condemn the threats and acts of violence that followed the House vote on Sunday. All decent people should join in that condemnation. It is immoral on its face, not to mention the taint it leaves on the cause of diminishing government power. By [...]
25Mar2010 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedAnti-Force Is the Common Denominator
Allow me to alter something the great humorist Will Rogers said: “I’m not a member of any organized group. I’m a libertarian.” I wince a bit as I say that, though. Let me explain. Labels such as “libertarian” aren’t always illuminating. Sometimes they serve as expedient substitutes for thought—as in, “Oh, he’s one of those!” [...]
24Mar2010 | Lawrence W. Reed | 14 comments | ContinuedWhat We Believe
The Foundation for Economic Education, publisher of this magazine since 1956, is now in its seventh decade, and I am now in my seventh month as its president. As we expand the outreach of our programs and publications, now is a good time to remind our readers who we are and what we believe in. [...]
2Mar2009 | Lawrence W. Reed | 8 comments | ContinuedFreedom and Majority Rule
The publisher of the London Times came to this country a few years after World War I. A banquet in his honor was held in New York City, and at the appropriate time Lord Northcliffe rose to his feet to propose a toast. Prohibition was in effect, you will recall, and the beverage customarily drunk [...]
1Jun2005 | Edmund A. Opitz | 0 comments | ContinuedTaking Drug Laws Seriously, II
Libertarians univocally assert that the prohibition against initiating violence is a cardinal principle of libertarianism. The peasant in Colombia who grows coca is not initiating violence. The politician in the District of Columbia who enacts laws authorizing the use of military aircraft to bomb and destroy the peasant’s crop does.
1Oct2003 | Thomas Szasz | 2 comments | ContinuedA Think Tank for Those Who Don’t Think
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong,” wrote John Maynard Keynes, “are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.” Keynes was wise to include the phrase, “both when they are right and when they are wrong.” Unfortunately, it’s [...]
1Jan2002 | Lawrence W. Reed | 1 comment | ContinuedDon’t Expect Much From Politics
The older I get and the more I learn from observing politics, the more obvious it is that it’s no way to run a business—or almost anything else, for that matter. The deficiencies, absurdities, and perverse incentives inherent in the political process are powerful enough to frustrate anyone with the best of intentions. It frequently [...]
1Dec2001 | Lawrence W. Reed | 1 comment | ContinuedTotal Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Penn State Press · 2000 · 496 pages · $65.00 cloth; $24.00 paperback Reviewed by James Otteson This book is the third in a trilogy from Chris Matthew Sciabarra. The other two were his Marx, Hayek, and Utopia (SUNY, 1995) and Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (Penn State, 1995). The project of Total Freedom is [...]
1Oct2001 | James R. Otteson | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Smart-Growth Scam
H. Nathan Hart recently graduated from Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama. Paul Cleveland is an associate professor of economics at Birmingham-Southern College. Transportation is essential to the daily life of nearly every American. Millions of people flock onto the freeways and streets to accomplish innumerable tasks each day. Americans love their cars. No other mode [...]
1Jul2001 | and H. Nathan Hart | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Bought Mind
Why did the Founders not mention money, that is, the government’s use of taxes to support religious organizations? The answer is simple and important. First, because religious bodies, exemplified by the Vatican, derived their income directly from their members, collected their own funds, and were often quite wealthy.
1Jul2001 | Thomas Szasz | 1 comment | ContinuedImperfect Opponents
“Microsoft and the government were the perfect opponents. The government has some power, but Microsoft has at least as much. Anyone else facing either one of them would be overmatched.” That is not some comedian’s line. It was spoken in all seriousness, I presume, by David Boies, who led the Justice Department’s antitrust case against [...]
1Oct2000 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Power to Destroy
The Internal Revenue Service penalizes a taxpayer $46,806 for an alleged underpayment of ten cents. Armed IRS agents storm the homes of a restaurant owner and his manager because of unsubstantiated charges from a fired ex-employee that the men were drug dealers. A taxpayer is driven to suicide by the IRS’s hounding after it had [...]
1Oct2000 | John Attarian | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Drug War’s Assault on Liberty
Lance Lamberton is a communications professional who was the deputy director of the White House Office of Policy Information in the Reagan administration. Special thanks to Jerry Epstein of the Drug Policy Foundation of Texas for his assistance in researching this article. Copyright 2000. In determining the proper boundaries of government action consistent with a [...]
1Aug2000 | Lance Lamberton | 4 comments | Continued-
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