All Posts Tagged With: "voting"
Had Enough Yet?
Regarding the looming fiscal disaster, it’s best to keep one’s eyes on the forest and not get lost in the trees. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the numbers, but one thing looks certain: Most everyone understands the current situation is unsustainable in the ruling establishment’s own terms. If nothing changes, in perhaps a little [...]
25May2011 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedExercise Your Right to Vote!
Some might argue that the right to vote entails the obligation to vote, perhaps because they heard somewhere that every right entails an obligation.
2Nov2010 | Sandy Ikeda | 31 comments | ContinuedPublic Schools through the Public Choice Lens
Regarding the state of government (“public”) schooling in the United States today, two facts stand out. The first is that the average amount of money spent per pupil has dramatically increased during the past 35 years and is now one of the highest in the world, and the second is that student achievement, by both [...]
22Sep2010 | Michael Bors | 7 comments | ContinuedIn Defense of the Huddled Masses
In April Arizona attracted national attention when it enacted a strict anti-immigration law, SB1070, which authorizes police having “lawful contact” with a person who arouses “reasonable suspicion” that he is an illegal alien to make a “reasonable attempt . . . to determine the immigration status of the person.” The law is intended to make [...]
25Aug2010 | Aeon J. Skoble | 21 comments | ContinuedWhere Does Your Vote Really Count?
To encourage us to participate in the political process, we are told that every vote counts. That is true if one is adding up the total votes, but what is the likelihood of any one person’s vote affecting the outcome of a presidential election? Simply put, it is equal to the probability that the person’s [...]
1Apr2009 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | ContinuedCapital 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 | ContinuedAre the Voters Qualified to Pick a President?
The big political buzz is over whether John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama are qualified to be president. The voters are expected to decide, but are they qualified to do that? How would voters know who is up to this job? They might try to make a judgment on the basis of character. But [...]
1Apr2008 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedI Won’t Vote!
Whenever I reveal my steadfast insistence on not voting, most people look at me as if I just admitted to slaughtering my dogs for dinner. Maybe it’s not illegal, say those looks, but it sure as heck is unseemly and irresponsible. Fancying myself to be a morally upright person, I obviously don’t believe that not [...]
1Apr2008 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 13 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – March 2008
- Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies
by Bryan Caplan Reviewed by Dwight Lee - The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World
1Mar2008 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | Continued
Freedom 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 | ContinuedThe Lesser of Two Evils
Leonard Read (1898–1983) was the founder and president of FEE beginning in 1946 until his death. September 26 marks the 106th anniversary of his birth. This article first appeared in The Freeman, February 1963. According to The Columbia Encyclopedia, “the existence of only two major parties, as in most English-speaking countries, presupposes general public agreement [...]
1Sep2004 | Leonard E. Read | 2 comments | ContinuedWhat’s So Good About Democracy?
It was once said that “democracy is the most promiscuous word in the language; she is everybody’s mistress.” Indeed, political regimes of widely differing institutional features label themselves democracies, as did totalitarian communist orders. Often, the best guide to a country’s democratic credentials was that it didn’t call itself democratic: compare West Germany’s Federal Republic with the East German Democratic Republic.
1May2003 | Norman Barry | 35 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
What Is “Mental Illness”? To the Editor: [The March column opposing insurance parity for psychiatric treatment by] Thomas Szasz . . . shocked and disappointed me. . . . Any close relative (myself included) of a person who was formerly seriously mentally ill—with all the unwanted auditory and visual cacophony—and was returned to normal rational [...]
1Jul2002 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedWho Should Vote?
Status as an adult citizen in a political jurisdiction is seen as a sufficient condition to entitle one to vote for a representative or participate in collective decision-making. Why not apply that same criterion and entitle adult citizens to voting rights to decide the composition of corporate boards of directors and other corporate matters? If [...]
1Jan2002 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | ContinuedKeep the Electoral College
Should the Electoral College be abolished? Last year’s presidential election raised the question once again, but it also answered it with an emphatic NO! The framers of the Constitution knew precisely what they were doing when they established the system for electing presidents, which is more than anyone can say about the people who spent [...]
1Mar2001 | Lawrence W. Reed | 3 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
To Vote or Not to Vote To the Editor: As a long-time supporter of FEE I was very disappointed in the partisan viewpoint expressed by Sheldon Richman in his Perspective in November 2000. He seemed to sum up his interpretation of the Cato Institute study with the advice to either not vote Republican or not [...]
1Mar2001 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedRules versus Rulers
By now someone presumably has been inaugurated president of the United States. It’s a good time to reconsider voting as a method of making important decisions. The presidential election has exposed to light a long-known but little acknowledged fact: democratic processes are like a cheap sweater. Don’t look too close, and for gosh sakes, don’t [...]
1Feb2001 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued-
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