Posts Tagged ‘libertarian’
Are Profits Fit Only for Serfs and Slaves — Richard W. Fulmer
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Richard W. Fulmer In their recent book, From Poverty to Prosperity, Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz relate that ancient Romans believed it honorable to gain wealth through battle and conquest, but dishonorable to profit by engaging in commerce. Such work was considered so demeaning that it was left to the [...]
Funding Corruption and Waste in Afghanistan — Ron Paul
Texas Straight Talk with Ron Paul Last week, GOP chairman Michael Steele came under fire for daring to say what a lot of Americans already know – that our involvement in Afghanistan is an ill-advised quagmire with no end in sight. After nearly 10 years and approaching $1 trillion spent, the conflict is going nowhere because there is [...]
Why Doctors Don’t Want Free-Market Medicine — Theodore Levy
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Theodore Levy You may have heard that the AMA and “America’s physicians” favor universal health care. That’s true of the AMA, but that organization represents fewer than 20 percent of the nation’s doctors. And it’s true of many academic university physicians, but anecdotally it is obviously [...]
Reaping the Whirlwind of Progressivism, Part I — William L. Anderson
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, William L. Anderson How Much More Can We Take? When I recently criticized an editorial cartoonist for slamming libertarians — he said a libertarian “lifeguard” would let everyone drown — he wrote back claiming that libertarians would abolish numerous federal departments and agencies, like the [...]
African Centre for Law & Justice — Zimbabwe Update
The constitution-making process in Zimbabwe finally seems to be making headway. The outreach exercise was already several months behind schedule due to delays caused by endless squabbles over the composition of the teams, talking points to shape the hearings, donor funding, allowances to be paid, and other issues. The three principals in the [...]
Too Much Government in the Gulf — Ron Paul
Texas Straight Talk with Ron Paul Sadly, the disaster in the Gulf continues this week as BP’s efforts at containment keep hitting snags and residents along the coast scramble to clean up and defend their shores and wildlife. Many have criticized the federal government in the past weeks for not doing enough. The reality is there is only so [...]
R.C. Hoiles and Public Schooling — Wendy McElroy
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Wendy McElroyIn a letter dated May 23, 1946, the libertarian publisher R. C. Hoiles wrote to Leonard E. Read, who would establish the Foundation for Economic Education later that same year. Hoiles advised Read on what he believed was the underlying cause of America’s alarming shift from individual liberty [...]
Authoritarianism Is Bad For Your Health —
Texas Straight Talk with Ron Paul The administration's terrible healthcare reform bill is now law, but the debate over how-- and whether-- the federal government should be involved in providing healthcare services is not over. It is not too late for America to correct its course and stop the march toward a government run, "single payer" [...]
Why Governments Hate Gold — Ron Paul
Texas Straight Talk, Ron Paul This past week several emerging and ongoing crises took attention away from the ongoing sovereign debt problems in Greece. The bailouts are merely kicking the can down the road and making things worse for taxpaying citizens, here and abroad. Greece is unfortunately not unique in its irresponsible spending [...]
Competition and the Limits of Sports Analogies — Steven Horwitz
by Steven Horwitz The problem with markets for many critics is that competition puts people at odds with one another. If only we could have an economic system based on cooperation. Wouldn’t that be better for everyone? Instead of winners and losers, all would gain by working together. Beneath such complaints lies a view of [...]
Liquidity Trap or Malinvested Resources? — William Anderson
By William L. Anderson Keynes versus the Austrians Many people claim today that the U.S. economy is in a “liquidity trap” and only government can spend us out of this mess. Commentators from Paul Krugman to Martin Wolf of the Financial Times assert we are in a “Keynesian situation”; unless government spending rescues us, we are [...]
Rand Is Right — Henry Lamb
By Henry Lamb Rand Paul told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that he thought the Civil Rights Act might have gone too far when it required private businesses to serve all comers. He said he supported the Civil Rights Act, that government had every right to require non-discrimination in public facilities, but the government should not have the power to [...]
Rand Paul Was Right; Liberals Say So — Bryan Fischer
By Bryan Fischer Rand Paul argues that the constitutional principle of freedom of association allows private individuals and businesses to decide with whom they will associate, and that it is not the business of government to tell them with whom they must fraternize. That's not racism. Protecting the right of association is what allows churches [...]
More Blank Checks to the Military Industrial Complex — Ron Paul
Texas Straight Talk, Ron Paul Congress, with its insatiable appetite for spending, is set to pass yet another “supplemental” appropriations bill in the next two weeks. So-called supplemental bills allow Congress to spend beyond even the 13 annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government. These are akin to a family that [...]
Due Process in Jeopardy — Wendy McElroy
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Wendy McElroy Last week the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Comstock et al. that Congress has the constitutional authority to empower federal district courts to civilly commit dangerous sex offenders who had completed their sentences. In effect, the courts can mandate indefinite [...]
Socialism vs Corporatism — Ron Paul
Texas Straight Talk with Ron Paul Lately many have characterized this administration as socialist, or having strong socialist leanings. I differ with this characterization. This is not to say Mr. Obama believes in free-markets by any means. On the contrary, he has done and said much that demonstrates his fundamental misunderstanding and [...]
Anti-Force Is the Common Denominator
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Lawrence W. Reed Allow me to alter something the great humorist Will Rogers said: “I’m not a member of any organized group. I’m a libertarian.” I wince a bit as I say that, though. Let me explain. Labels such as “libertarian” aren’t always illuminating. Sometimes they serve as expedient [...]
Wearing Politically Correct Handcuffs — T.F. Stern
By T.F. Stern There’s an article by Michael Dykes posted on the Yahoo News site pointing attention to the fact that many Republicans have lost their regard for keeping quiet; often times spewing antagonistic words in public meetings. The story came to light as a heckler from the gallery shouted “Baby Killer” during the proceedings prior [...]
Did Locke Really Justify Limited Government? — Joseph R. Stromberg
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Joseph R. Stromber John Locke (1632–1704) was a physician, statesman, and political philosopher, filling that last office in a dry, “empirical,” and militantly antipoetic English mode. Locke’s stock has risen and fallen over the years. Contemporaries called him a Socinian (a precursor of Unitarianism), [...]
The Census — Vehicle for Social Engineering — Wendy McElroy
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Wendy McElroy In his book Seeing Like a State, James Scott commented on the role played by census data in the rise of the modern state: “If we imagine a state that has no reliable means of enumerating and locating its population, gauging its wealth, and mapping its land, resources, and settlements, we are [...]
Health Care and Radical Monopoly — Kevin Carson
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Kevin Carson In a recent article for Tikkun, Dr. Arnold Relman argued that the versions of health care reform currently proposed by “progressives” all primarily involve financing health care and expanding coverage to the uninsured rather than addressing the way current models of service delivery make it so [...]
Glenn Beck, Performer and Provocateur — Alan Caruba
By Alan Caruba I watched Glenn Beck mesmerize the audience at the CPAC meeting that had begun so well with serious conservative speakers such as former Vice President Dick Cheney. However, it ended as a libertarian fun fest and Beck strikes me as the clown prince of libertarianism. I find it beneficial when a conservative can demonstrate a [...]
Will Borrowing To End Downturn? — William Anderson
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, William Anderson There are many unfortunate legacies of Keynesian “economics,” too many to list in this brief column. However, I concentrate on two of them: the notions that recessions change economic laws and that government borrowing equates to business borrowing. Both views are championed by Paul [...]
Producing Jobs — Thoughts On Obama’s Plan for Small Business — Bruce Yandle
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Bruce Yandle The ears of small business America must have perked up last month when President Obama spoke about that critically important sector in his State of the Union address. And mine did as well. Here’s when it really got interesting: “I’m … proposing a new small business tax credit -– [...]
The Goal is Freedom — Obama and the Public
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Sheldon Richman Barack Obama, the current White House occupant, says that the people have a growing sense that “something is broken” in Washington. He attributes this to hyper-partisanship and a consequent lack of civility. As he put it Wednesday, “Those of us in Washington are not serving the people as [...]
Victory for Free Speech at San Jose State University
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org There is good news today for students living in the residence halls at San Jose State University (SJSU). The housing department has revised several restrictive policies, including a previous FIRE Speech Code of the Month, thanks to the efforts of administrators seeking to protect the free speech rights of SJSU [...]
Frustrating Michael Moore — Sheldon Richman
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Sheldon Richman If Michael Moore would study a little political economy he might turn into a potent champion of individual liberty. As we see in Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore is offended by some truly offensive things: banks engaging in wild speculation without concern for the risk, [...]
The State of Obama’s Union — Sheldon Richman
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Sheldon Richman “he nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.” That line from Wednesday night’s state of the union address was one of several in which the current White House occupant, Barack Obama, displayed a rather [...]
Coercive Care — William Anderson
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, William L. Anderson The recent loss of what supposedly was a “secure” U.S. Senate seat by Democrats in Massachusetts has triggered a firestorm of speculation about the future of the Democrats’ “health care” bill. For the current legislative season, so-called ObamaCare looks to be dead or at least [...]
Principled Parties — Lawrence Reed
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Lawrence Reed Imagine a political movement that says it’s committed to “equal rights”—and means it. Not just equality in a few cherry-picked rights but all human rights, including the most maligned, property rights. Imagine a movement whose raison d’être is to oppose any and all special privileges [...]
