All Posts Tagged With: "personal responsibility"
A Maverick’s Defense of Freedom
The Liberty Fund catalog is filled with excellent books on American history, economics, and philosophy. As a Public Choice economist I have benefited tremendously from its publication of the collected works of James Buchanan. While I already owned several of his books, the opportunity to purchase all his books and articles at once saved me [...]
26Oct2011 | Joshua C. Hall | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Struggle to Limit Government: A Modern Political History
Today’s most crucial policy battles are about federal spending and the scope of government power. Cato Institute scholar John Samples reminds us in this book that those battles have their origins in the Progressive era, the New Deal, and the Great Society. Early in the twentieth century Herbert Croly (cofounder of The New Republic) argued [...]
24Aug2011 | Greg Kaza | 0 comments | ContinuedOn That Day Began Lies
It is simply a matter of personal determination and a resolve to act and speak in strict accordance with one’s inner, personal dictate of what is right. And for each of us to see to it that no other man or set of men is given permission to represent us otherwise.
27Sep2010 | Leonard E. Read | 15 comments | ContinuedConscience on the Battlefield
PROLOGUE (1981) In 1951, during the Korean War, I wrote a pamphlet entitled Conscience on the Battlefield. War “as a means to peace among nations” was then, and remains, a world-wide fallacy. Today, small wars go on in various parts of the globe, and there is the possibility that a big one is in the [...]
14Jul2010 | Leonard E. Read | 5 comments | ContinuedSad Democracy
During this presidential election year, it’s commonplace to sing paeans to the wonders of democracy. I, though, have never been able to join in this chorus. The principal reason is that I put no intrinsic value on democracy; what I value intrinsically is individual liberty. Democracy might have instrumental value if it is part of [...]
1Sep2008 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 1 comment | ContinuedDoes Governmental Vicarious Liability Make Any Sense?
Ridgway K. (Dick) Foley, Jr. practices law in Oregon and is a former FEE officer and trustee. Copyright Ridgway K. Foley, Jr. 2007. Fueled by the Instrumentalist Revolution, the American legal system has decayed from a quest for a just resolution of realistic disputes that the parties cannot solve by less formal means into a [...]
1Mar2008 | Ridgway K. Foley Jr. | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Shortcomings of Government Charity
Jude Blanchette is a freelance writer living in China. In their book, Myths of Rich and Poor, W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm observe, “Some part of human nature connects with the apocalyptic. Time and again, the pessimists among us have envisioned the world going straight to hell.” To be sure, “pessimists” apparently run most [...]
1May2007 | Jude Blanchette | 4 comments | ContinuedFlight from Responsibility
Whenever I catch myself admiring a thinker, I find that he shares a trait with other thinkers I admire: an insistence on clear and honest language, a determination not to take metaphors literally. Apropos of this, September marks the 106th anniversary of the birth of FEE’s founding president, Leonard E. Read, a good time for [...]
1Sep2004 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | ContinuedFast Food and Personal Responsibility
Ninos Malek teaches economics at San Jose State University, De Anza College, and Valley Christian High School. By now everyone knows that the fast-food chains are being sued because they allegedly contribute to obesity. On Fox’s “Hannity and Colmes” program last July, Samuel Hirsch, the attorney who filed lawsuits against McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, and [...]
1Jan2003 | Ninos P. Malek | 2 comments | ContinuedNo Responsibility, No Freedom
Andrea Yates was not the only person whose free will was on trial last winter. Thus the Yates murder case underscores the affront represented by the psychiatric (and any other reductionist-positivist) worldview. She drowned her five young children in a bathtub last year and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. (The jury nevertheless convicted [...]
1Jun2002 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedSuperheroes and the Fight for Liberty
In recent times, popular culture has not exactly been a bastion of principled thought and philosophy, particularly when viewed from conservative or libertarian perspectives. Television, movies, and music, along with countless novels, have been infiltrated either by big-government leftism or a pervasive nihilism. Is there a pop-culture genre that might be considered an exception? Well, [...]
1May2001 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedMore Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well
Statist “liberals,” take cover. Your sacred cows are fair game in this hard-hitting work by a witty, insightful, and even radical hunter of wrongheaded conventional wisdom somehow mesmerizing the mainline media, clergy, Congress, academe, and other purveyors of mulish political correctness. Did I say Congress? Well, hear the author, professor of economics at George Mason [...]
1Aug2000 | William H. Peterson | 3 comments | ContinuedModeration in All Things
Aristotle wisely advised moderation in all things. Gluttons and fanatics self-destruct by refusing to make the tradeoffs necessary to lead a good life. “Don’t tell me that I can’t drink and carouse every night and not succeed in my career!” insists the fool. “I can have it all.” Well, he can’t. No one can. That’s [...]
1Mar2000 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Food & Drink Police: America’s Nannies, Busybodies and Petty Tyrants
Threats to the freedom of Americans to make their own choices and run their own lives are proliferating as fast as mushrooms after a heavy summer rain. Some have already grown to huge, Alice-in-Wonderland proportions (like the IRS), while many others are just sprouting. In the latter category is the threat to our freedom to [...]
1Dec1999 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedA World Without the FDA
Back in 1980 I had the good fortune to spend a summer in Santiago, Chile. My woeful high-school French produced an even more woeful Spanish, but I was able to travel about that beautiful country with wonderful people. In the middle of my stay I developed a fearful cold and wandered into what looked like [...]
1Sep1999 | Russell Roberts | 11 comments | ContinuedHow Big Government Usurped Personal Responsibility
Aren’t national summits great? America’s foremost academicians, bankers, and mutual fund managers gathered in early June at the government’s request to devise new ways to encourage a spend-happy public to save more. While the 240 delegates to the National Summit on Retirement Savings agreed that more savings are needed, they were reluctant to suggest policies [...]
1Oct1998 | Peter T. Leeson | 0 comments | ContinuedHow to Get Action
Leonard E. Read established FEE in 1946 and served as its president until his death in 1983. This article is excerpted from Essays on Liberty, Vol. III (1958), pp. 102-109. It is the eighth in a monthly series commemorating the 100th anniversary of Mr. Read’s birth. “I want less talk and more action.” Thus speak [...]
1Aug1998 | Leonard E. Read | 1 comment | Continued-
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