EDITORIAL
Showing 2001 - 2050 of 2084
April 29, 2010
Enthusiasts for increasing government regulations of people in business, including those in the financial markets, never bother to answer the one basic question that any rational person would need to have answered before joining them as champions of their propo ...
April 27, 2010
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 demons ...
April 27, 2010
Here we have a blatantly misleading assessment of a free society as well as men and women in such a society. Yes, Honderich is right that no one has an enforceable claim on other people providing food for them. There is in such a country no legal right to be su ...
April 24, 2010
As America sinks deeper into the tyranny of bureaucratic corporatism via today's incestuous relationship between Washington and Wall Street, it is understandable why many among the citizenry have become disgusted, and it is gratifying that thousands of Tea Part ...
April 24, 2010
Indeed, it seems to be common sense to worry about investing government with all the power being advocate for it now by Mr. Obama and Co., since, to put the matter simply, there is no reason to think that those who are the government possess any superior virtue ...
April 21, 2010
No one in his right mind denies that people in commerce can become criminals. That's because people in any walk of life can--it is a basic human capacity not only to do something wrong but to hurt others with it. No other known animal is like us in this respect ...
April 20, 2010
Congress made a grave error by forcing all Americans to purchase health insurance. The mandate violates fundamental principles of individual liberty, and will lead to further government involvement in health care. It is time for legislation that fights back for ...
April 19, 2010
When President Obama recently admonished members of the Tea Party, urging that they show him gratitude, that they thank him, he demonstrated quite unambiguously his adherence to the doctrine of statism, one that includes monarchism, czarism, Caesarism, and all ...
April 17, 2010
Indeed, over the past few weeks, an amazing sequence of laws, treaties and acts have been put in place to facilitate more deficit spending and more big brother powers. None of these laws enhance your liberties. None of them are aimed at protecting fundamental r ...
April 15, 2010
In matters of human conduct it is vital to distinguish between actions that coerce others to do something they must be in charge of choosing either to do or not do, versus resisting their attempts to coerce someone. If I try to make you eat your vegetables and ...
April 13, 2010
Last week the federal government's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission held hearings as part of their continuing investigation into the causes of the acute economic meltdown which occurred in late summer 2008. This bipartisan commission, partly inspired by the ...
April 10, 2010
When liberty is attacked by its critics and enemies, often defenders pull out the skeptical ploy: "No one can know right from wrong, so no one may force others to comply with any standards of right versus wrong. Who can tell how we ought to act? And if no one c ...
April 06, 2010
As we head into the summer driving season and gasoline prices are again creeping up, the administration has announced plans to explore opening up more off-shore areas for exploration and drilling. On the one hand this can be lauded as a positive step. On the ot ...
April 06, 2010
It is disgusting to witness all the dishonesty surrounding the current administration's public policy efforts. Even the new language columnist of The New York Times Magazine is in denial and pretends to consider it some kind of smear - even conspiracy - for tho ...
April 03, 2010
Jeffersonian Conservatism offers us salvation. Its fundamentals of reason, universalized natural rights, and moral idealism are the vital antidotes to reverse the plague of authoritarian statism presently destroying the West. Without its restoration, an alien d ...
April 03, 2010
Although there could be variations in how one ought to resist (dodge, avoid, legally contest, etc.) taxation, the answer to whether those subject to the institution are ethically justified in making the effort to resist it is in the affirmative. Yet, as with al ...
April 01, 2010
The New York Times reports that according to a ruling by a federal judge "a Mississippi school board was grossly discriminatory and mean-spirited when it told Constance McMillen that she could not attend her high school prom with her girlfriend." According to t ...
March 30, 2010
Those who understand Austrian economic theory know that this new model of healthcare will cause major problems down the road, as it has in every nation that ignores economic realities. The more government involves itself in medicine, the worse healthcare will g ...
March 30, 2010
Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy knows that it is oftentimes as much a learning experience for the therapist as for the client. Nearly thirty years ago, I conducted a therapy group in which there was a man, a few years younger than I, with wh ...
March 27, 2010
We are making slaves out of those who are productive, and rulers out of those who gather together in bumptious mobs. We are allowing the destruction of individual rights to be justified by the might of numbers in pursuit of public handouts. The democratic major ...
March 25, 2010
Here is what some would consider a hard case: Someone very ill is attempting to purchase insurance but companies refuse to provide it because they have a pretty good idea that covering the illness will cost very big bucks, way above what the insured and others ...
March 23, 2010
Following months of heated public debate and aggressive closed-door negotiations, Congress finally cast a historic vote on healthcare late Sunday evening. It was truly a sad weekend on the House floor as we witnessed further dismantling of the Constitution, dis ...
March 22, 2010
The threat of this happening in other nations is quickly growing in the minds of politicians, investors and citizens around the world. The threat of lost trust, leading to a higher cost of servicing debt and financing deficits, leading to a visible loss of cred ...
March 20, 2010
Last week, Congress debated a resolution directing the President to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan no later than the end of this year. The Constitution gives the power to declare war to the Congress, so it is clearly appropriate for Congress to assert its ...
March 20, 2010
Switzerland has long been an irritant to pushy governments everywhere. The country's availability and reliability as a place to store wealth undermines the power of foreign governments to exploit their own citizens. That chronic irritation may help explain the ...
March 20, 2010
The point deserves to be made over and over: majorities have no just authority to trump individual rights! That old dependable standby of the lynch mob is a perfect illustration of this. Just because the whole town wants to hang the suspect, it doesn't follow t ...
March 16, 2010
As my career in academia winds down, hopefully not too rapidly, I reflect on just how odd it is that in the United States of America, the leaders of which often boast of being the freest country in human political history, most of education is the province of g ...
March 13, 2010
Yet there are consequences for not submitting to the census and its intrusive questions. If the form is not mailed back in time, households will experience the "pleasure" of a visit by a government worker asking the questions in person. If the government still ...
March 13, 2010
In a free and open society there will be a great variety of ways that people, even the most highly educated ones, will see the country's history, especially when it comes to politics and economics, as well as whatever other disciplines study. Few Americans coul ...
March 10, 2010
Now the big problem with this is that while respect for another's right to life or liberty requires nothing more from someone than to abstain from killing (or assaulting or kidnapping) that individual while respecting the right to, say, health care requires act ...
March 08, 2010
What they say is, well, a big lie, although for The Times it is routine by now, what with the leadership of hyper-Keynesian Paul Krugman on their pages when it comes to political economy. They state, clearly without any hesitation, that "For a quarter-century, ...
March 06, 2010
These questions enveloped the recent news surrounding Greek and EU sovereign credit risk. Concerns in this context have dominated financial markets and price action over the past week. The EU, led by Germany and France, has now 'dutifully stepped up to the plat ...
March 06, 2010
Over the years the distinction between public and private spaces has become obscured. Which is why Starbucks is finding it so difficult to insist that customers do not carry weapons while in their establishment. It is because over the last several decades a doc ...
March 03, 2010
Last week I had the opportunity to bring up spending and transparency in two important hearings. On Wednesday I questioned Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on some highly questionable uses of funds at the Federal Reserve, and on Thursday I asked Secretary ...
March 02, 2010
The moral system these avid fans of statism are peddling is the doctrine of service to the public interest. You know, "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country" and similar calls to have us all abandon the Declaration's idea ...
February 27, 2010
Therefore, if Americans want a stable and prosperous economy, they want a free economy (that is, one based on the free market). If Americans want a free economy, they want "a free State", that being the only kind of political system that will support and defend ...
February 27, 2010
Last week marked the one year anniversary of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, or the stimulus bill, passing into law. While the debate over its success has been focused on whether or not it is stimulating the economy and on various questionable uses ...
February 27, 2010
President Obama and others at the summit Thursday (2/25/10) kept talking about philosophical difference between his team and the Republicans but what did they have in mind? By "philosophical" most mean "basic," or "fundamental." Possibly "systemic" could also b ...
February 26, 2010
Even without much expenditure of electronic soap for their "brainwashing" by the Armed Forces' psy-ops contingents, the American people in their anonymous millions would likely accept these turns of events, and the "official" explanations for them, because by t ...
February 25, 2010
In light of the self-evident dangers it poses to Americans' constitutional liberties, a nationwide network of police agencies centrally controlled from Washington, D.C., is bad enough. For if such a network is not itself a "national police state", it certainly ...
February 25, 2010
Ever since the idea of individual liberty has achieved some measure of credibility over the world, those who would be unseated by its limited triumph had to find some way to discredit it or trump it somehow. One way was to re-christen servitude, to make it appe ...
February 24, 2010
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, a certain nation was one of the richest countries in the world. [World War II] had left it a creditor nation; it was owed * * * billion[s of] dollars by Britain alone. The derelict state of the European economies gave [th ...
February 20, 2010
Last week we were reminded that ours is not the only country suffering from severe economic turmoil. The Greek government is the latest to come close to default on their massive public debt. Greece has insufficient funds in their treasury to make even the minim ...
February 20, 2010
So Tiger Woods apologized for his "selfish behavior." Of course, what he did was to dishonor himself, his human self that is, not benefit it at all. Indeed, this allegedly selfish conduct of Mr. Woods has produced a few hours of sensual pleasure at the expense ...
February 18, 2010
The idea that everyone is always acting selfishly comes from Thomas Hobbes, mostly, though others have voiced it too. For Hobbes we are all moved by passions, such as for power or wealth or such, and this is merely the human version of the way matter behaves in ...
February 13, 2010
Last week, the House approved another increase in the national debt ceiling. This means the government can borrow $1.9 trillion more to stay afloat and avoid default. It has been little more than a year since the last debt limit increase, and graphs showing the ...
February 13, 2010
If I recall this right, the prominent philosopher and legal theorist, Martha Nussbaum of the University of Chicago (where she is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics), has argued that while it is true that full human equality is no ...
February 06, 2010
Last week politicians in Washington made a few things clear about how they really feel about the state of the union. First, they are beginning to hear the growing discontent with the size and scope of government and the broken promises that keep piling up. Cert ...
February 06, 2010
Actually, no one thinks corporations are persons but some do believe they are groups of persons. No one thinks orchestras, or football teams or universities are persons but many do think they are variously configured people. If this is so, then they, as groups ...
January 30, 2010
Much has been made recently about the supposed economic recovery. A few blips in a few statistics and many believe our troubles are all over. Of course, they have to redefine recovery as "jobless" to account for the lack of improvement on Main Street. But the b ...
