All Posts Tagged With: "rule of law"

A Simple Solution

There is always an easy solution to every human problem – neat, plausible, and wrong. —H. L. Mencken I have devised a simple plan for improving Americans’ health by drastically reducing everyone’s weight, thereby significantly increasing longevity and reducing medical costs. All we need to do is revalue the pound. Instead of a pound being [...]

24Aug2011 | Richard W. Fulmer | 1 comment | Continued

The Other Principle of Classical Liberalism

If government grants certain privileges to those who are married, it must grant them equally to all its citizens who wish to marry.

30Jun2011 | Steven Horwitz | 56 comments | Continued

Lawless Government

One week ago today the War Powers Resolution clock ran out on the Libyan intervention, yet President Obama has neither ceased operations nor asked for congressional authorization.

27May2011 | Sheldon Richman | 26 comments | Continued

Jury Nullification: Right, Remedy, or Danger?

Last December a “mutiny” occurred in a Montana courtroom. At least that’s what a stunned county deputy attorney called it. One of 27 members of a jury pool spoke up to ask why taxpayer money was being wasted to prosecute a man accused of possessing 1/16th of an ounce of marijuana. When polled, a large [...]

25May2011 | Wendy McElroy | 8 comments | Continued

Why Do the Poor Stay Poor?

Of the six billion people on earth, two billion try to survive on a few dollars a day. They don’t build businesses—or if they do, they don’t expand them. Unlike people in the United States, Europe, and Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc., they don’t lift themselves out of poverty. Why not? [...]

24Feb2011 | John Stossel | 9 comments | Continued

Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice

Every generation faces the struggle for freedom anew, but not alone. To be successful it must draw on its inherited ideas of freedom, then reformulate them into a message that is relevant and inspiring to the people of a particular time and place. Success in this task requires both a message and a messenger: something [...]

24Feb2011 | Ben Asa Rast | 0 comments | Continued

Jury Nullification: Remedy or Danger?

Jury nullification can occur for reasons good or ill, from ingrained justice or from inbred prejudice.

4Jan2011 | Wendy McElroy | 35 comments | Continued

Of Fallible Umpires and Rogue Judges

There is a striking similarity between blown calls by umpires in baseball and blown calls by judges in our legal system. We now know, unambiguously, that umpires make mistakes—sometimes excruciatingly costly ones. According to baseball purists, those mistakes “are part of the game.” Yet there is a rising chorus of calls for Major League Baseball to [...]

22Oct2010 | David N. Laband | 1 comment | Continued

Obamacare: Rule by Decree

Is there a way to make Obamacare worse? Yes, by giving the authorities loads of discretionary power so they can selectively exempt favored companies from the onerous rules. And that’s what’s happening right now. Bloomberg reports, Nearly a million workers won’t get a consumer protection in the U.S. health reform law meant to cap insurance [...]

21Oct2010 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | Continued

Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything

In the gigantic theater that is American politics, one of the favorite roles for politicians to play is that of the tough guy who is determined to “crack down” on something or other. Such actions are predictably cheered by whatever voting groups the politician wants to curry favor with. An often-heard campaign line is, “Vote [...]

13Jul2010 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | Continued

Why Globalization Works

Look at the foes of economic globalization and you’ll find a curious coalition. Some are left-wingers who oppose globalization because they oppose capitalism. But others are right-wing protectionists who don’t like foreign competition. The strength of the anti-globalist coalition has waxed and waned over time, but there is still a large number of people who [...]

13Jul2010 | Martin Morse Wooster | 0 comments | Continued

How Corporations, Government, and Trial Lawyers Abuse the Judicial Process

If you want money, one way of getting it is to produce and trade with others who desire what you have to sell. Sociologist Franz Oppenheimer famously called that the “economic means” of obtaining what one wants. Alas, many people prefer another way of getting money, namely, the use of force and/or threats to compel [...]

13Jul2010 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | Continued

The Rule of Lawyers: How the New Elite Threatens America’s Rule of Law

Know any good lawyer jokes? They’re quite abundant and often tasteless, reflecting the widespread opinion that the legal profession is composed mostly of unethical rogues who say anything and do anything to squeeze money out of people. It certainly is not true that the entire legal profession consists of scoundrels practicing what amounts to legalized [...]

7Jul2010 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | Continued

The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad

Modern political discourse often treats democracy as if it were synonymous with liberty. In The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria aims to refute that facile notion and reinvigorate the distinction between the two. As Zakaria puts it, pithily: “The execution of Socrates was democratic but not liberal.” Zakaria’s book is an extended brief against the [...]

2Jul2010 | Gene Healy | 2 comments | Continued

Friedrich Hayek

In this first full-length biography of Friedrich Hayek—economist, thinker, Nobel laureate, and political philosopher of the rule of law, liberty, and limited government—Alan Ebenstein offers a veritable intellectual travelogue of Hayek’s journey through life. As a student, we learn, Hayek was mildly socialist. However, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises’s devastating critique, Socialism(1922), “fundamentally altered [his] [...]

30Jun2010 | Bettina Bien Greaves | 0 comments | Continued

On the Rule of Law

Everyone agrees that the rule of law is good, both morally and economically. Almost no one—regardless of political ideology—dares to question the great goodness and importance of the rule of law. I certainly don’t question it. But what exactly is the rule of law? In answering this question we uncover reasons why persons with vastly [...]

24Mar2010 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 20 comments | Continued

Botswana: A Diamond in the Rough

Over the past 40 years Botswana has been sub-Saharan Africa’s fastest-growing country and one of the fastest-growing countries in the world. Though it started off as one of the poorest countries in the world, its per capita income now compares favorably with many Mediterranean counterparts. Like most countries, the financial crisis has slowed Botswana’s recent [...]

24Mar2010 | Scott Beaulier | 3 comments | Continued
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