U.S. History

If you subscribe to wsj.com, they are starting a new forum today, kicked off by Brad DeLong and Arnold Kling (of the Cato Institute).

Otherwise, I will add, our hope is that, when public policies violate our rights to be secure in our persons and our property, public opinion will change upon the demonstration of the disastrous consequences of those policies, in terms, yes, of poor economic performance, but also in terms of political conflict and social upheaval.

In the 1920s Presidents Harding and Coolidge never got close to the poll favorites of Washington, Lincoln and FDR when ranked, because they killed fewer, taxed less, made their administrations almost invisible, and sought no wealth or glory.

There is not a living soul who is willing to call the Iraq war a success. At the end of the day, all that Bush will leave is debt, death, and disaster.

The American government today, drawing from the largest economy in the world, has far more scope and power to wreak havoc on voluntary exchange across borders, with the prohibition of trade with Cuba entering its forty-fourth year of futile immiseration.

There is no absolute monetary stability, never has been, and never can be. Economic life is a process of perpetual change.

His faith in the state is touching, but the policy he favors will lead to the deaths of many more Iraqis and Americans. Haven’t we killed enough?

Jeff Saut Presents: The Emerald City argues that The Wizard of Oz was

The first form of government in the New World was an emergency measure to maintain the Pilgrim control over the servants and other settlers.

Reconstruction is the readmission of the Southern states to the Union. Lincoln decided that ten percent of the eligible voters in 1860 had to take an oath of loyalty to the Union.  Andrew Johnson, after Lincoln, added that wealthy Southern Planters had to beg for pardons. The Southern states were militarily occupied.