Ah, the simplicity of demagogic populism, especially that of Bill O'Reilly and Stephen Moore. They haven't even bothered to notice that Dannon yogurt produces products in three U.S. plants (in Ohio, Texas, and Utah) and distributes them from five U.S. facilities (in Texas, California, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania).
Thomas Woods recently wrote on LRC, "It still frustrates me that some people who really believe themselves to be conservatives are so enthusiastic about the impending war with Iraq." We've all encountered this in our private lives, people with whom we have agreed with on a huge range of economic and cultural issues are just downright wrong on the war.
Those who speak of "commodification," which apparently has become a buzzword in socialist circles, actually have things backwards. The presence of a price upon a good does not make it scarce; rather, it is the scarcity that creates the price. To put it another way, the very nature of scarcity means that a good must be rationed, as it cannot be given freely to everyone who wants it.
It is slowly dawning on people that to understand George W., one must understand his religious impulses, which all evidence suggests are intensely important to him. His views are no different from that of the typical evangelical who absorbed his faith from the American Baptist culture. But they merit closer attention when they are held by an arrogant man with his finger on the button and who is contemplating total war.
Benjamin Franklin made clear the ultimate intended result of America's experiment in liberty, when he said, "God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country."
People frequently refer to government policies as paternalistic—either to justify or criticize them. But there is no analogy between a family and government.
David Frum did not intend to write a send-up of the state. His goal was not to demystify the White House. But that is the effect of his chatty little book, The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush (NY: Random House, 2002).
If the pundits and politicians ever succeed in imposing the draft again on American citizens, for purposes of bolstering the military empire or doing social work, writes Jeffrey Tucker, they will have to look for support outside the libertarian tradition. Mises is not enlisted in this cause.
Does justice permit people to be charged for services that they do not use? Certainly not. But this is the very essence of government. One family in Michigan decided that they wouldn't take it anymore, fought city hall, and won. Adam Young tells the story.
Noam Chomsky is an outstanding critic. But figuring out what he is for in the realm of economics is not easy. He doesn't like what we have now. He disfavors Stalinism and fascism. He despises the libertarian alternative to the present regime. That leaves him with a hazy and unworkable syndicalism.
