Various Democratic politicians, including Diane Feinstein , are considering reviving the fairness doctrine to rein in talk radio’s “unfair bias.” Unfortunately, it is just the latest abuse of a perennial political weasel word—fair. Fair is a great weasel word because no one will admit to being against fairness, despite massive differences in what
With its title of Freedomnomics , some might dismiss John Lott’s latest book as just some slanted ideological rhetoric to be ignored. That would be a mistake. Having known him since graduate school at UCLA, I can attest that he is not an ideologue trying to abuse logic and statistics to confirm prior assumptions. He is someone who does his best to
On December 15, America celebrates the anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Of those rights, the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech is perhaps the most celebrated. If so, there is a good reason. After surviving a critical test from the Sedition Act of 1798, which tried to muzzle political opposition by making it illegal to ‘combine or
September 11 has triggered overwhelming generosity by Americans. The American Red Cross was even able to suspend donation requests for its Liberty Fund, because more than half a billion dollars of pledges will cover its expenses in aiding the WTC victims. But that tidal wave of response also triggered controversy, when the Red Cross announced that
League owners decided to eliminate two baseball franchises. What was the response? Of course, politicians from the areas most likely to lose franchises immediately proposed legislation to extort the league to back down. This Fairness in Antitrust in National Sports Act would have overridden part of a 1922 Supreme Court ruling exempting baseball
Why is politics so negative compared to marketing — its analog in the private sector — even though virtually every candidate echoes the desire to “just get along”? The explanation revolves around two important ways political competition differs from market competition: higher payoffs to negative attacks, and rationally ignorant “customers.”
Will Rogers, one of America’s best-loved humorists, once said he’d never met a man he didn’t like. But that amiability did not extend to the government. He gave free rein to his 1st Amendment freedom to criticize our government, using his wit, and the threat of public embarrassment that went with it, to keep politicians and bureaucrats in their
On Labor Day, Americans honor the often incredible contributions of its working men and women. But that honor is typically hijacked by unions who portray themselves as representing all American workers and claim that they are largely responsible for the gains workers have made. Those assertions are false. In fact, unions have harmed workers as a
Earlier this month, I happened upon the fact that February 19 is the anniversary of Garet Garrett’s 1878 birth. I had read little of his writing, but I had been impressed by a quote of his about individualism: “In principle, I believe that the less we act upon the lives of others for good or evil — the less the better. Each one saves himself or he
That there are inherent benefits in diversity is a common article of faith in our democratic/populist times. We hear it in and about universities, businesses, politics, entertainment, etc . Typically, though, we hear about it in terms of forcing more diversity on those whose diversity in a particular dimension doesn’t measure up to someone else’s
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.