Free Republic

It's the spending, stupid! When was the last time you heard Senator Obama or Senator McCain give a speech on the bloated public sector? Did Senator Clinton, in her recently concluded presidential bid, ever scold voters who constantly want the government to "give" them more and more services? These are rhetorical questions. Today our ruling parties tacitly agree that no government department can be eliminated, that major spending reductions are forbidden and that the spending spree must continue. Indeed, Democrats say little or nothing in the federal budget can be cut. The government must expand its responsibilities. It must provide...

If old Karl Marx, the embittered inventor of communism, could return from the grave, he would no doubt be surprised to find that most of the 10 planks of his Communist Manifesto, issued in 1848 in collaboration with Frederick Engels, have been happily adopted or are at least supported by Americans. Let's look at the 10 planks: 1. "Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes." Well, we're working on this one. The federal government owns huge amounts of land and is acquiring more. Private property rights are being eroded deliberately in the...

Text of Address by Alexander Solzhenitsynat Harvard Class Day Afternoon Exercises,Thursday, June 8, 1978I am sincerely happy to be here with you on this occasion and to become personally acquainted with this old and most prestigious University. My congratulations and very best wishes to all of today's graduates. Harvard's motto is "Veritas." Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and...

Bob Barker, retired game show host of "The Price is Right," testified Tuesday at City Hall in support of a controversial ordinance that would make spaying and neutering mandatory in Chicago. Under this legislation, all cats and dogs would be required to undergo the necessary operation once they reach six months of age. “Overpopulation is one of the most tragic animal problems that we have in our country,” Barker said. “There are thousands, probably millions of people across the country who have devoted [themselves] to trying to find homes for surplus animals. And these people… are doomed to fail,” he...

A Philosophy - If You can Get OneThe Germans of the Weimar period were increasingly frustrated, angry, disgusted with the “system,” and ready for change. So are Americans. The Germans, following their intellectuals, were disgusted with what they regarded as reason and freedom, and they were ready for Hitler. The Americans are disgusted with unreason and statism; but they are directionless. Without intellectual guidance, they do not know what went wrong with their system or how to prevent the country’s disintegration and collapse. Thus, by default – despite the profound differences between Americans and the pre-Hitler Germans – the similarities...

Kansas City voters on Tuesday approved a ballot measure to ban smoking from the city’s bars and restaurants. With results from all but one precinct, the smoking ban won by a 52 to 48 percent margin, with voters both north and south of the Missouri River signaling their support. The measure also calls for Kansas City’s casino gaming floors to go smoke-free when casinos in neighboring cities approve similar bans. Health-care advocates and civic leaders countered that business rights stop when they infringe on nonsmokers’ rights to breathe clean air. Those supporting the ban said they were especially concerned about...

Now there are generally two reactions to the above story. If you're like me, you're reminded yet again why you love capitalism. It's dynamic. And the more capitalist your economy, the more dynamic it is. Every great success story is vulnerable to the next great success story – which is why teenagers aren't picking their CDs from the Sears-Roebuck catalog. There's a word for this. Now let me see. What was it again? Oh, yeah: "change." Innovation drives change, the market drives change. Government "change" just drives things away: You could ask many of the New Hampshire primary voters who...

When they debated economic issues in Dearborn, Mich., most of the Republican presidential candidates talked about how good the economic statistics look. Mike Huckabee was the candidate who offered sympathy for the public’s anxieties. So it has been throughout the campaign. Huckabee, more than the other Republican candidates, understands that even in a time of economic growth Americans are worried about their health care, their wages, and their country’s future. He seems to understand his party’s strategic options better than his Republican rivals, too. Since conservative positions on controversial moral issues have helped Republicans, there is no reason to abandon...

Democrat and Republican liberals on the US House Education and Labor Committee have released their discussion draft for the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  Both Hillary Clinton, as the "mayor" of the government "village" which wants to raise our children, and the ghost of George Orwell, author of 1984, are well represented in this draft.  What began in 1965, ostensibly as an effort to help poor children improve academic achievement has grown and spread like a monstrous cancer that is destroying academic achievement and freedom, parental autonomy, privacy, and the ability to maintain our republic for ALL public...

Here we go again. HillaryCare is back, and its apparent that Sen. Clinton has learned little since the American people overwhelmingly rejected her last attempt to overhaul the U.S. health care system. Once again her plan, which would cost $110 billion per year in new taxes, calls for greater government control over American health care. If her plan were to pass this time, it would mean higher taxes, lost jobs, less patient choice, and poorer quality health care. Among the worst features of her proposal: An individual mandate. Sen. Clinton would require every American to purchase health insurance or face...

Zeke lived with an FFA teacher because he had no other home. He worked for his room and board; he fed the pigs and chickens, and helped with the milking. The summer between the 8th and 9th grades, Jasper, the FFA teacher, took Zeke to a neighbor's ranch and let him pick out a day-old Hereford bull for his first FFA project. The deal was that Jasper would pay for the calf, and for the feed, and Zeke could repay Jasper when the calf grew to become the Grand Champion Steer at the state fair, and sold at the fair's...

<p>PARIS -- French libraries are said to file their nation's constitutions -- there have been more than a dozen since 1789; the current one is a relatively ancient 49 years old -- under periodicals. Now Nicolas Sarkozy, France's peripatetic new president, has created a commission on constitutional reform. The commission includes Jack Lang who, as minister of culture in 1983 under President Francois Mitterrand, staged a sublimely unserious conference on the (supposed) world economic crisis, featuring the likes of Sophia Loren, Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Some mornings during the autumn of 1933, when the unemployment rate was 22 percent, the president, before getting into his wheelchair, sat in bed, surrounded by economic advisers, setting the price of gold. One morning he said he might raise it 21 cents: "It's a lucky number because it's three times seven." His treasury secretary wrote that if anybody knew how gold was priced "they would be frightened." The Depression's persistence, partly a result of such policy flippancy, was frightening. In 1937, during the depression within the Depression, there occurred the steepest drop in industrial production ever recorded....

The Department of Justice has sent a letter of concern to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) describing the dangers of his lobby reform bill, H.R. 984. The DOJ letter notes that H.R. 984 violates the separation of powers and intrudes upon the day-to-day operations of the Executive Branch. H.R. 984 burdens “more than 8,000 executive branch employees with an onerous recordkeeping and disclosure requirement. Congress lacks constitutional authority to micromanage the affairs of the Executive branch to this extreme and unprecedented degree. … the bill raises substantial First Amendment concerns in that the disclosure process would burden the public’s right to...

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity. The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an "ownership society" really is an "on your own" society that has widened the gap between rich and poor. "I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none."...

I grow tired of chaotic, unpredictable, and wildly fluctuating weather conditions. Left to its own devices, the weather produces nothing but sustained inequality and frustration for all. Therefore, in accordance with the rising tide of public opinion in support of government-imposed climate controls, I would like to take an already popular idea one step further. I believe that the federal government should impose regulations on all weather within the boundaries of the United States under the following plan:

ON APRIL 2, this newspaper reported that the Los Angeles Police Department had asked Philip Morris USA for a $50,000 donation to help fund its investigation into counterfeit cigarettes. That makes a lot of sense: If TV cop shows have commercials, why shouldn't real police work have corporate sponsors too (you know, aside from the obvious reasons of favoritism, bias and perverse incentives)? For that matter, what's wrong with wealthy families in La Cañada Flintridge, San Marino and other communities holding constant fundraisers to pay for the unfunded needs of their local public schools — drama societies and marching bands...

The government will retry a prominent marijuana advocate on cultivation charges even though he faces no punishment if convicted, beyond the one day in jail he's already served, a federal prosecutor said today. Prosecutors decided on a second trial for Ed Rosenthal after a "thorough and careful review,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer... Defense lawyer Shari Greenberger said she would ask Breyer to order the government to reimburse Rosenthal for the time his lawyers spent getting the new charges dismissed.

April 10, 2007, 6:00 a.m. Sick on the RightDr. Tanner’s diagnosis. By W. James Antle III In simpler times, the phrase “big-government conservatism� was considered an oxymoron. Today, it is the subject of heated debate as well as an increasing number of books. The latest and perhaps most policy-focused of these titles is Leviathan on the Right: How Big Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution, written by Michael Tanner of the libertarian Cato Institute. Tanner gets right to the point. He opens the first chapter by listing several liberal-sounding proposals to grow the federal government, ranging from a...

Martin Hutchinson is the author of "Great Conservatives" (Academica Press, 2005) -- details can be found on the Web site www.greatconservatives.com The high tide of globalization, free trade and capitalism, which had seemed so irresistible in the 1990s, appears to be receding, even as the world economy continues to expand. In country after country, new economic experiments are being tried which have the effect of increasing the state’s control over economic matters. Not just a general swing to the center-left in world politics, this is in some respects a springtime for Stalin, and a proof that his dream of controlling...

So why are people so concerned about the state of the climate? I mean really, why are these people so concerned? Do they care about polar bears, baby seals and cute, little Arctic lemurs? Please! These people have found the ticket to power, the fulcrum of Archimedes’ dreams. They can control what we do at work, what we eat, what we drive and now, how many children we have and which people are allowed to even have them. And they do it all, for the future. Global Warming is the ultimate mind job. The issue provides the ultimate shillelagh of...

Mental health screening of all children is the goal of legislation introduced into many state legislatures this year. Typical of these highly controversial bills is the Missouri bill that would require every Missouri school district, in collaboration with "the office of comprehensive child mental health," to develop "a policy of incorporating social and emotional development into the district's educational program." The Missouri bill requires schools to "address teaching and assessing social and emotional skills and protocols for responding to children with social, emotional or mental health problems." The bill also requires the Missouri state board of education to set...

TOLLWAY giant Transurban is looking to expand its e-tag system to give customers cashless entry into Sydney car parks. Transurban will roll out an electronic tag toll system in Sydney similar to its Melbourne operation if it succeeds in its $1.26 billion takeover bid for Sydney Roads Group. The deal would leave Transurban in control of most of Sydney's roads, adding the M1 Eastern Distributor, the M4 and M5 to the M2 and M7 motorways it already operates. The acquisition would make Transurban the country's dominant toll road operator. It would use this base to deliver thousands of its e-tag...

Results of three legislative hearings on various anti-initiative bills: *Legislators ignorant about the contents of bills that they themselves are co-sponsoring; *Repeated, purposeful misrepresentation of the facts by the Secretary of State, misleading legislators, the press, and the public; *Committee hearings where microphones are cut off when citizens are speaking; *Legislators snickering and rolling their eyes during citizen testimony; *Far-reaching bills with an "analysis" that is a single paragraph; *Without discussion or debate, votes on bills with only two legislators present (we asked staffers "How can you vote without a quorum?" - they refused to answer); *Long lists of citizens...

A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act. The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near future. It is the first time scientists have succeeded in reading intentions in this way. ~snip~ The use of brain scanners to judge whether people are likely to commit crimes is a contentious issue that society should tackle now, according to Prof Haynes. "We see the...

OLYMPIA, Wash. - An initiative filed by proponents of same-sex marriage would require heterosexual couples to have kids within three years or else have their marriage annulled. Initiative 957 was filed by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance. That group was formed last summer after the state Supreme Court upheld Washington's ban on same-sex marriage. Under the initiative, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children in order to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their...

The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected. The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents. Over the...

The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected, says Julia Preston in the New York Times. Consider: Last year federal customs, Border Patrol and immigration agents detained more than 1.2 million immigrants, the majority of them at the border with Mexico. About 238,000 of those immigrants were detained in immigration enforcement investigations. Conversely, only about 102,000 people were arrested on federal charges not related to immigration...

See video for Hillary's plan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1PfE9K8j0g

A lame-duck governor morphs into a Bill Clinton-Phil Angelides composite on policy and rhetoric. “That depends what the definition of ‘is’ is.” — Soon-to-be-disbarred William Clinton, speaking to the Lewinsky grand jury and showing that weasels know well how to use weasel words. Of the many indignities Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has inflicted of late on common sense and fundamental Republican principals, his support for the long-held socialist dream of state-run health insurance is perhaps the worst. As if his support for this deformed monster of public policy weren’t enough, he adds the insult of hiding behind weasel words as shamelessly,...

A Philosophy - If You can Get One The Germans of the Weimar period were increasingly frustrated, angry, disgusted with the “system,” and ready for change. So are Americans. The Germans, following their intellectuals, were disgusted with what they regarded as reason and freedom, and they were ready for Hitler. The Americans are disgusted with unreason and statism; but they are directionless. Without intellectual guidance, they do not know what went wrong with their system or how to prevent the country’s disintegration and collapse. Thus, by default – despite the profound differences between Americans and the pre-Hitler Germans – the...

Back to Socialism in Central Europe by Bill Steigerwald Posted Dec 04, 2006 Central Europe's four-pack of liberated former Soviet colonies -- Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic -- have been drifting away from free markets and democracy and back toward socialism and authoritarianism. According to Marian L. Tupy, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute, Central Europe's liberal political parties (i.e., free market parties) have been losing out at the polls to populist parties that combine left-wing economics with right-wing social attitudes. I talked to Tupy, who has an article about the rise of illiberalism in Central Europe...

The Dangers of Russia's Statism by Michael J. EconomidesPosted Oct 17, 2006There are two certainties in today’s Russia under Vladimir Putin’s government: the country’s economy will likely implode before long, and a major confrontation with the United States and Europe may occur even sooner. I write this without any malice towards the Russian people, whose nation I admire in many ways. Culturally, Russians defy most conventions. In literature, music, the arts and most other intellectual pursuits, they would be at the top of the world. But in many of the areas that define modernity, they trail badly. Their democratic institutions...

The problem with liberalism National Post: Letters To The Editor Tuesday, October 10, 2006 Re: Statism Isn't Liberalism, George Jonas, Oct. 7. George Jonas's column should be required reading for all Canadians, especially for those running for the Liberal party's leadership. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once wrote, "Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the power of government to do good." Too many of today's liberals, small-l or large-L, have no real understanding of liberalism. Politically, they engaged with the Liberal party because...

The following article appeared in the December 2000 issue of Ideas on Liberty, a monthly journal published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in New York. Mr. Reed is serves on FEE's board of trustees. Dear Statist Friends: I know, I know. You're already objecting to my letter. You don't like the label, "statist." You don't think of yourselves as worshipping government; rather, you think of yourselves as simply wanting to help people, with government being your most-often preferred means to achieve what is usually a very worthy end. "Statist," you say, is a loaded term—a pejorative that suggests...

Russia is not quite the bear that the dragon of China is. But Russia still has appeal despite the many real obstacles and challenges a business partner might face. The laws change seemingly on a whim; the government jumps in and out of relationships; work stops; a GM factory faced a temporary shutdown when it couldn't come to terms with a state-owned partner. Still, there are a number of joint ventures in the news. Despite the problems that GM has been having, the automotive retail group Inchcape hopes to team up with Moscow's automotive retailer Independence Group. Inchcape has operations...

Russia is growing, and so are the shadows that are cast over the business proceedings there. The bureaucracy is still extremely burdensome and growing. And laws are a matter of convenience and seemingly circumvented at will -- or at least when you have the right connections. Corruption and middlemen are a matter of course, and bribes are expected and given. Confiscation of private goods -- i.e., Motorola's ongoing fiasco -- and resale for profit is old news. Legitimate dealings are called smuggling. And smuggling is called smuggling. Russian law allows confiscated material in criminal investigations to be sold or destroyed...

In the 1960s, 85% of the oil in the world was available for ownership, development, partnerships, and such. At the time, 14% of the oil reserves belonged to the Soviet Union. Today it is the reverse of that: 16% of the world's oil is available. 65% is owned by the nations that possess the fields and 19% has limited access -- that is, nations, including Russia, will allow others to invest in and partially own their oil fields. It's different now. And, shall we not forget there are some nations that will allow investment and development and then, when all...

PDF document, can't cut and paste

I detect a pattern in the challenges hurled at (genuine) liberals on nearly every issue. The opponent of liberalism describes a problem, invariably with roots in a government infringement of freedom. In response, he prescribes more government interference with freedom, at which point the liberal interjects that the best and only just solution is the repeal of the culpable state power. The statist replies that this will not do because the liberal's proposal won't solve every related problem and may even reveal hitherto overlooked problems. Undo still more government action, the liberal replies. But this brings the same criticism. Here's...

GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla. (April 25) - A woman in a wheelchair who swung knives and a hammer at relatives and police died after being shocked by a stun gun, officials said. Police tried to talk Emily Marie Delafield, 56, into dropping the weapons before they used the Taser to subdue her Monday, Police Chief Robert Musco said. Delafield lost consciousness after the electric jolt and later died at Orange Park Medical Center. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating and an autopsy will be conducted to determine a cause of death. The two officers involved have been put...

Tony Blair insisted yesterday that advocates of free-market reform were winning the battle against rising protectionism inside the European Union. But his words were undercut by the failure of an EU leaders' summit to agree planned measures to kickstart sluggish European economies. To highlight the benefits of liberalisation, Mr Blair said No 10 was already a shining example of the benefits of open markets and the benefits of free competition across Europe. "The electricity in Number 10 Downing Street is supplied by a French company. The water by a German company. The gas is supplied by four companies, three of...

Why Statists Always Get it Wrong by Per Bylund [Posted on Monday, February 20, 2006][Subscribe at email services and tell others] In a recent article, Carl Milsted uses Rothbard to argue it would be permissible to use force to make people pay for a service of which their benefit is at least double its cost. His conclusion is that it is reasonable, and even preferable, to establish a minimalist state if it is to people's advantage. As has already been argued by N. Stephan Kinsella, he totally misses Rothbard's point. Furthermore, he fails to show why people would not choose...

Do not condemn Putin out of hand By Anatol Lieven Published: February 28 2006 02:00 | Last updated: February 28 2006 02:00 A measure of western hostility to Russia is justified, given both the nature of Russian external policies and the crude, clumsy way in which they are often executed. Unfortunately, this hostility can take on an irrational and hysterical tone absent from western attitudes to China, for example. In recent years one reason for this particular western attitude has been growing dislike of the semi-authoritarian character of the Putin administration. A good deal of hypocrisy is involved here.

"With the rise of the modern corporation, the emergence of the organization required by modern technology and planning and the divorce of the owner of capital from control of the enterprise, the entrepreneur no longer exists in the mature industrial enterprise." -- John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, chapter vi The role of entrepreneurs is one of those issues that divides people politically. If you value entrepreneurship, then it is difficult to be a statist. If you are a statist, then it is difficult to value entrepreneurship. John Kenneth Galbraith represents the quintessential statist. If we were literally stuck...

Seattle -- A federal judge who struck down a Bush administration decision to ease logging restrictions last summer issued an injunction Monday blocking as many as 144 timber sales in three states. The sales in Washington, Oregon and northern California had been approved under the administration's decision to stop requiring that the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management look for and protect rare plants and animals before logging on 5.5 million acres covered by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. The Bush administration eliminated the so-called "survey and manage" rule in spring 2004 as part of a legal settlement with...

Hi all and happy new year. Here's some humour, in the form of wallpaper for your computer (just right-click to save it). Send it to an anti-capitalist today! Cheers, LBM

Op-Ed Contributor YESTERDAY the Senate failed to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, as a Democratic-led filibuster prevented a vote. This action - which leaves the act, key elements of which are due to expire on Dec. 31, in limbo - represents a grave potential threat to the nation's security. I support the extension of the Patriot Act for one simple reason: Americans must use every legal and constitutional tool in their arsenal to fight terrorism and protect their lives and liberties. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made clear that the old rules no longer work. The terrorists who attacked...

WASHINGTON - The House easily approved renewing a modified USA Patriot Act on Wednesday, but with the bill facing a Senate filibuster, its Republican leader began talks with the White House on instead extending the current law unchanged for a year. The House voted 251-174 to approve a House-Senate compromise that would modify and make permanent most of the Patriot Act's 16 expiring provisions. But a group of Republican and Democratic senators is lobbying for more time to add additional safeguards on the law. Facing a threatened filibuster, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was talking with White House officials...

With hysteria mounting about the political shift leftward in Latin America and 11 presidential races in the region over the next 13 months, the World Bank's "Doing Business in 2006" survey merits a read. We mentioned it two weeks ago but a fuller airing is in order. ... This year's results demonstrate clearly that despite persistent claims that the region has tried the "free-market" model and found it wanting, Latin America is stubbornly stuck in a statist time warp. When it comes to burdensome government and weak property rights, Latins don't fare as badly as Africans but their freedoms lag...