Legal System

Consider: the government reports that job discrimination complaints against private employers increased 4 percent in 2002, to a total of 84,442, the highest level in seven years. Those filing complaints took in $310.5 million in monetary benefits. The main complaint involves race, followed by sex, but the big increase came with allegations involving religion, age, and national origin. The trend represents a huge diversion from the main goal of restoring economic growth.

Like previous administrations in modern America, the Bush Administration has openly declared itself an enemy of the rule of law. If well-heeled corporations are unable to defend themselves from what essentially are illegal prosecutions, what chances will avail to the rest of us?

 

Artists often see themselves as underappreciated members of an elite that knows which cultural achievements are economically valuable and which are not. In actuality, profit drives businessmen to attempt a vastly more complex task: the estimation of actual consumer wants in a vastly complex and changing world.

If hedge funds can be regulated or inhibited from selling short, asks Christopher Mayer, what is next? Ban mutual funds that invest in tobacco companies or other sin stocks? Ban investors from betting against a rise in the dollar? Prohibit investors from owning gold? (That's already been done before.)

Homeschoolers—the largest group in the so-called school choice movement—still elicit scorn. The National Education Association, for instance, regularly passes an anti-homeschooling resolution at its annual convention. Now it's apparently Tinseltown's turn to bash the estimated 1.5 million homeschooled children in the United States.

To the extent additional safety comes at a higher cost, it restricts the ability to make provision for other needs and wants, including safety, in other areas of life, writes George Reisman. And this remains true even when the higher costs of safety are initially imposed on business firms rather than directly on consumers. 

Washington loves the analogy—-and reality—-of war. Adam Young considers one of the most famous uses of that term, the War on Poverty. It was in reality, a State-sponsored war on the opportunities of the poor and on all Americans.

Following Lott's public flogging, many people were astonished by the Senator's willingness to jettison all political principle for the sake of saving his status as Majority Leader. Why would a conservative Republican suddenly find himself embracing the full panoply of the left-wing racial agenda and criticize himself so mercilessly?

Few remember the reasons why the Federalists opposed the Bill of Rights, or why the Antifederalists (opponents of giving new power to the federal government) insisted that the new government be bound by them. However, since that debate still provides the basis for upholding our rights against federal assault, it remains as relevant today as two centuries ago. 

Yes, people have been defrauded, and, yes, justice needs to be served. However, by pursuing people by using the vague and unjust RICO and "insider trading" laws, the politicians appeal not to our need for justice, but to the baser emotions of envy, resentment of wealthy people, and a gut-level desire to commit mayhem.