Do We Really Want a Right to Health Care?

Do you have a right to health care? People want a right to health care because they think it will guarantee them the services they need. But might obtaining health care as a political right rather than a market commodity have a downside? The government cannot produce or purchase an infinite amount of health care. [...]

Positive Rights as Means Not Ends

Even though the House passed so-called “health care reform,” the debate over “entitlements” will not be going away. This is especially true if, as I believe, the bill makes things worse not better.

Getting Rights Wrong

It's the Fourth of July, the
day we ought to contemplate and rejoice in Jefferson's radical declaration of
the “self-evident” truth that all individuals
are
equally endowed with “certain unalienable Rights, … among these … Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Alas, the day cannot be one
of unmitigated joy since we have again been reminded that the purported
protectors of our liberties have little understanding of those rights. We thus
live under constant threat from the very people who claim to protect us. As you might guess, I am
referring to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Second Amendment case, District
of Columbia v. Heller.
More . . .

A NEW article by Sheldon Richman

Principles Must Come Before Politics

Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE.  We live in a time of quick fixes and patent medicines. The “physicians” offering to spoon-feed the elixirs for what ails us are the politicians running for office. Rarely do people step back and ask themselves whether there is really any ailment at all, or whether the politicians’ [...]

Silly Talking

Let’s talk about absolutely ridiculous pronouncements people make that either ignore simple fact or border on insanity. How about this one: Violence is no way to settle anything! Evidence suggests that violence is a very effective way of settling things. Let’s look at a few examples.

Loved to Death: America’s Unresolved Health-Care Crisis

Dr. Hurd is a psychologist/author residing in Maryland. The Canadian health-care system of single-payer, socialized insurance is in trouble. Yet Congress and the president continue to push the American system in the same direction. As Canada’s national government slashes spending on medical care in order to reduce the deficit, local provinces are reducing medical staff. [...]

Education and the Free Society

Linda C. Raeder is a doctoral candidate in political theory at the Catholic University of America and associate editor of Humanitas. The classical-liberal philosophy of limited government and the rule of law is in danger of being consigned to oblivion. Enemies of the free society have successfully appropriated the time-honored “liberal” name and transformed it [...]

Rights, Freedom, and Rivalry

Dr. Baird is director of the Smith Center, California State University, Hayward, and this month’s guest editor. The idea for this paper came out of a conversation the author recently had with Dwight Lee of the University of Georgia (see pp. 663-666). A conversation with Dwight Lee is always fruitful. Packaging counts. This maxim of [...]

No Rights without Property Rights

Reading between the lines of the news stories from Russia, or rather the commentaries on the news, one detects a note of hopefulness. Perhaps, they seem to say, the demotion of Stalin portends a measure of freedom for the Russian people. Admitting that a controlled economy is undesirable, is brutality a necessary concomitant of it? [...]