Many consider Walt Whitman America's greatest poet, and his Leaves of Grass the most influential poetry volume in American literature. But Whitman's poetic celebration of individual freedom is not limited to his poetry. It is also reflected in the all-but-overlooked prose he penned during his extensive career as a journalist and editor.
"The only possible merit here, once you get behind all the pretension and infantile psychobabble, is to show readers just how craven, shallow, unprincipled, and deluded Washington conservative activists are."
Social Security is not an insurance program. A Social Security "account" bears no legal resemblance whatsoever to a bank checking or saving account. Social Security bestows no contractual rights or any other type of property right on workers. In other words, Social Security as it is currently structured has nothing to do with legally enforceable promises or guarantees.
Mark Thornton shows that George Lucas is taking bits and pieces of our own historical experience to retell a battle between good and evil that also touches on themes in political economy, particularly the choice between self-determination (essential to freedom) and imperialism (linked to war and state expansion).
Ask farmers in China, and they will tell you that the really bad apples don't come from Washington state. The bad apples come from Washington, D.C. That's because, just as with steel, our government recently imposed rules designed to drive out foreign apple producers. J.C. Robbins explains.
To demonstrate the symbiotic relationship between the modern political classes and journalism, one has only to see the current "revolving door" in Washington, D.C. From Chris Matthews to George Stephanopolous, the gaggle of former government staffers working as "journalists" demonstrates beyond a doubt what is happening in journalism today.
Richard Ebeling writes: The rejection of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes around the world has represented a rebirth of the ideal of the democratic order. It is important to remember, however, that "self-government" can mean and has meant two different, but complementary ideals.
Germany today, argues Frank Vogelgesang, is a country marked by often suffocating regulation, a social security system that lies like a wet blanket over the private sector, and a labor market in desperate need of breathing room. This goes against the kind of market economy envisioned by Ludwig Erhard after World War II, based largely on ideas of the Freiburg School with its intellectual roots in the Austrian School.
In this previously unpublished piece, Murray Rothbard argues that the the silliest of demagogues are a great servant of reason, even when mostly in the wrong.
According to Ludwig von Mises, socialism was doomed to failure because the lack of private property, plus the absence of a profit and loss system, meant that accurate economic calculation would be impossible in those regimes. Instead of order, there would be chaos--something that was borne out time and again as we witnessed the poor performances of socialist economies.
