All Posts Tagged With: "woodrow wilson"
Great Wars & Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal
Essential to the maintenance of support for the government (almost any government, any time) is the idea that the nation’s wars have been just and heroic, and that the leaders who presided over them were great men. Ugly truths about those wars and leaders are routinely swept under the rug. Court historians (and yes, democracies [...]
21Sep2011 | George C. Leef | 24 comments | ContinuedWilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and World War II
It is difficult for many of us to understand the almost euphoric enthusiasm with which millions of Europeans marched off to war in the summer of 1914. For almost a century the people of Europe had, in general, lived through an amazing time in which living standards for practically everyone reached heights never before known [...]
9Jul2010 | Richard M. Ebeling | 3 comments | ContinuedThe Founders, the Constitution, and the Historians
How could Charles Beard have erred so badly in arguing that the Constitution was written mainly to serve the signers’ economic interests? In part Beard missed the mark because he was trying to hit something else—a Progressive agenda for reform, the excuse to transfer wealth from the haves to the have-nots. If the Founders were merely protecting their economic interests, Beard and his progressive friends were justified in supporting the redistribution of wealth.
11Jun2009 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 17 comments | ContinuedTwo Presidents, Two Philosophies, and Two Different Outcomes
In the White House, Wilson intended to be a strong president working with a “living Constitution.” He promoted the expanding of “beneficent” government into new areas. In his second year as president he concluded that shipping rates were too high, and he blessed his secretary of treasury’s plan to regulate overseas shipping rates and the companies doing the shipping.
1Jun2007 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 0 comments | ContinuedDemocracy Versus Liberty
If a foreign power took over the United States and dictated that American citizens surrender 40 percent of their income, required them to submit to tens of thousands of different commands (many of which were effectively kept secret from them), prohibited many of them from using their land, and denied many the chance to find [...]
1Aug2006 | James Bovard | 2 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – October 2003
The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I by Thomas Fleming Basic Books • 2003 • 543 pages • $30.00 Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling Imagine how different the twentieth century might have been if Lenin and the Bolsheviks had never come to power in Russia in 1917 and had not set in motion all the cruel crimes that were [...]
1Oct2003 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedReassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom
Imagine that there is an equivalent of the Academy Awards for politicians. We have just gotten to the big moment. “And the Oscar for Greatest President goes to . . . . um . . . . Martin Van Buren?” Almost no one ever thinks of Martin Van Buren at all, much less as the [...]
1Sep2002 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedWartime Curbs on Liberty Are Costless?
In one of the most provocative opinion articles of recent times, “Security Comes Before Liberty” (Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2001), Jay Winik argued (1) that in previous national emergencies, U.S. presidents took strong repressive measures against citizens and other residents of the country, (2) that the repressive measures implemented so far by the Bush [...]
1Mar2002 | Robert Higgs | 0 comments | ContinuedIsolationism
Frank Chodorov (1887-1966) was editor of The Freeman in 1954 and 1955. This is excerpted from his autobiography Out of Step (Devin-Adair, 1962). Reprinted with permission. Isolationism has been turned (by our politicians, our bureaucracy and its henchmen, the professorial idealists) into a bad word. And yet, isolationism is inherent in the human makeup. It [...]
1Jul1999 | Frank Chodorov | 2 comments | ContinuedAmerica’s Forgotten War
Doug Bandow, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author and editor of several books, including Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World. The war that did the most to transform the world for the worse was formally settled 80 years ago. Not World War [...]
1Mar1999 | Doug Bandow | 0 comments | ContinuedStar-Spangled Men: America’s Ten Worst Presidents by Nathan Miller
Scribner • 1998 • 272 pages • $23.00 Gene Healy is a student at the University of Chicago Law School. Historians who evaluate American presidents suffer from a bias against inaction. In the conventional view, great presidents are the nation builders and the war leaders; the failures are the ones who “never did anything.” Nathan [...]
1Mar1999 | Gene Healy | 0 comments | ContinuedA History of the American People by Paul Johnson
HarperCollins Publishers • 1998 • 1,088 pages • $35.00 “The creation of the United States of America is the greatest of all human adventures. No other national story has such tremendous lessons, for the American people and for the rest of mankind.” So begins Paul Johnson in his upbeat and first-rate A History of the [...]
1Mar1999 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 0 comments | ContinuedFederal Government Growth Before the New Deal
Professor Holcombe teaches economics at Florida State University. Popular opinion holds that most of the credit (or blame) for the incredible growth of the federal government should go to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. While Roosevelt certainly was a willing participant in that process, the federal government began its amazingly rapid growth [...]
1Sep1997 | Randall G. Holcombe | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Judgment of History
Mr. Bandow, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author and editor of several books, including Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World. President Bill Clinton has run for public office for the last time. No longer subject to judgment by the voters, he is [...]
1Apr1997 | Doug Bandow | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Failure of America’s Foreign Wars
Dr. Hoppe is professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and co-editor of the Review of Austrian Economics and the Journal of Libertarian Studies. History is invariably written by its victors. Because the twentieth century is uniquely the American century, with the United States [...]
1Nov1996 | Hans-Hermann Hoppe | 0 comments | Continued-
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