All Posts Tagged With: "local government"

Big Brother Is Watching You Recycle

In 2009, after four years of controversial and piecemeal policies intended to enforce recycling, England imposed a complex and compulsory system of garbage-sorting on homeowners. Citing the British model, Cleveland, Ohio, is taking a giant step toward a similar scheme of compulsory recycling. In 2011 some 25,000 households will be required to use recycling bins fitted [...]

24Nov2010 | Wendy McElroy | 28 comments | Continued

Leviathan: The Growth of Local Government and the Erosion of Liberty

Does government have too much power? Certainly—just think of all the freedom Americans have lost on account of the income tax, Social Security, Department of Labor regulations, the threat of antitrust prosecution, and so on. Note that in my short list of examples, each one is due to action by the federal government. In Leviathan, [...]

12Jul2010 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | Continued

About Those Tax Breaks

Few things bug free-market economists as much as the attempts by local and state authorities to give tax breaks to certain firms in the name of “creating jobs.”

6Jan2010 | William L. Anderson | 3 comments | Continued

A Market Based Approach?

I live in a small town, Garner, NC, which is right next to my state capital, Raleigh.  There has been tremendous growth in the area.  The other small towns are “revitalizing” their downtowns and, unfortunately, my town wants to do the same.In a letter to the local newspaper, the Executive Director of the Garner Revitalization Association [...]

11Nov2009 | Paul Cwik | 4 comments | Continued

Capital Letters

Mistreating the Constitution? If recent items in The Freeman are any indication, its writers take a rather dim view of the Constitution and the Framers thereof. While I couldn’t agree more regarding the people who wrote our federal compact (with a few exceptions), I must take issue with how the magazine treats the Constitution itself. [...]

1Oct2008 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

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 | Lawrence W. Reed | 3 comments | Continued

Central Planning Comes to Main Street

Steven Greenhut (sgreenhut@ocregister.com) is senior editorial writer and columnist at the Orange County Register in Santa Ana, Calif. He is author of Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain. A casual reader could be forgiven for skimming through a front-page Los Angeles Times article from February 12 and thinking that the story was [...]

1Aug2006 | Steven Greenhut | 1 comment | Continued

The Tyranny of Local Government

Thanks to the recent decision rendered by the Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London, citizens across the nation have a new reason to fear government.

1Nov2005 | Paul Messino | 1 comment | Continued

The European Union and the Interventionist State

According to a public-opinion survey released in January, almost nine out of every ten citizens of European Union (EU) member nations know either little or nothing of the draft constitution for Europe, which would further centralize political power and control over their lives. Yet in spite of this pervasive ignorance, 49 percent said they favor [...]

1Mar2005 | Richard M. Ebeling | 1 comment | Continued

The Bard Never Said "Click It or Ticket"

I’m cruising down one of the imperial four-lane highways; paved, drained, and bridged by the tax dollars I pay to the federal government and the Great State of Alabama. I’m buoyant because He who wrapped the earth, the United States, and the great State of Alabama with its climatic environment has done an especially fine [...]

1Sep2002 | Ted Roberts | 0 comments | Continued

A New Old American Concept of Political Liberty

It is odd that a libertarian should have a conception of political liberty at all. Isn’t it the case that there is a permanent war between freedom and politics? Surely any reduction in the political sphere produces a concomitant increase in individual liberty. Has not choice in the market, characterized by personal autonomy and spontaneity, [...]

1Mar2002 | Norman Barry | 0 comments | Continued

Tall Grass, Parked Cars, and Other So-Called Offenses

Scott McPherson is a freelance writer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom.” —F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom Proponents of overactive government never challenge the principle that government exists to protect individual rights. Rather, they have simply expanded the definition of rights to include anything [...]

1Jan2002 | Scott McPherson | 0 comments | Continued

A (Revisionist) Walk in the Park

I was recently in Missoula, Montana, and had a chance to take a walk on a hike and bike trail along the Clark Fork River. Despite having worked on my taxes shortly before leaving for Missoula, I was in a good mood—the air was crisp, there was a light dusting of snow on the mountains [...]

1Aug2000 | Andrew P. Morriss | 0 comments | Continued

The Arc of the Pendulum: A Philosophy for Government in the 21st Century

In The Arc of the Pendulum, Charles Stewart Goodwin advocates moving government power from the national to the local level and narrowing the scope of government at all levels. He calls this philosophy antifederalism, after the philosophy of those who opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution on grounds that the central government would be too [...]

1Oct1998 | Randall G. Holcombe | 1 comment | Continued

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