Ah, Spring, the time when the landscape appears as if it were painted by a great artist, when the birds make music of symphonic quality, and when the very air we breath feels air conditioned. That last point is particularly important, because it is only true so long as we are outside.
If we are inside, it is a different matter altogether.
"Iraq must be democratic," says the first point in the new U.S.-backed plan for Iraq's future. Had West Germany taken this route after the Second World War, writes D.W. MacKenzie, it would not have benefited from free markets and the prosperity that followed in its wake.
The Supreme Court, in its recent cross burning case, simply fails to understand that the First Amendment, and the other amendments that make up the Bill of Rights, is rooted in the protection of private property rights. Ignoring this point leads to absurdities, writes Adam Summers.
Some freedom-minded people pin their hope for liberty on withdrawing from an unfree world. We might refer to this as "economic secession." Despairing of advancing the cause of liberty in society at large, they hope to be able to secure their own liberty anyway. This approach is doomed to fail, write Paul Birch and Gene Callahan.
To celebrate the victory of a mightily armed imperial power over a small despotism is not a libertarian impulse. From under the rubble of buildings demolished by bombs, the corpses of tens of thousands of dead, the billions and billions spent by government, and the whole world impressed at the effectiveness of raw power, we can detect some very bad omens for the future.
When impoverished ethnic majorities are empowered by the sudden introduction of full blown democracy, they fall prey with discouraging regularity to demagogues who incite them against the often conspicuous disparity of welfare and privilege between them and the small, exclusive ethnic minorities.
In the writings of modern evangelical environmentalists runs a disturbing theme: the idea that it is possible for a small group of individuals to improve upon our use of the environment through coercion. In the name of stewardship, they lay claim to control of every aspect of our lives.
If the government actually believed that the homeland would be safer due to its actions overseas, why does it impose (under the threat of violence) a terrorism insurance requirement? And why do its warnings of impending doom seem to be increasing rather than decreasing?
Of all the false charges leveled against capitalism, the indictment of promoting or requiring imperialism and warfare is most certainly the least deserved. Given recent events, this proposition has received much undeserved attention, but is by no means new. This claim has a long legacy, tracing back at least to 19th century critics of Political Economy.
