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.
Like all government operations (public schools, domestic security, tax collection), the Post Office has to continually reform itself to avoid a complete public-relations meltdown. Thus did the Post Office become the Postal Service some twenty years ago. The Bush administration plans yet another version of this cosmetic change.
In 1902, writes George Leef, those who aspired to enter the legal profession could take several different routes. One was simply to study law individually. A second route was to apprentice yourself into a law firm and learn what you needed to know in that environment--as Clarence Darrow did. The third option was to go to law school.
Many pundits have attempted to diagnose why such a wave of scandals and record bankruptcies occurred when it did. Most suggestions fail to address underlying causes. The real lesson of Enron, argue Steinreich and Oglesby, is that significant corporate corruption will end when one-party rule of corporate America does. Until then, expect more Enrons.
Weakening and destroying the will to health is a major occupation of the state, which makes its public service announcements, prodding us to take care of ourselves, something of a joke. James Ostrowski explains the relationship between health and the state.
Liberty is incompatible with taxation, writes Tibor Machan. This is despite the famous saying by Oliver Wendell Holmes that "Taxation is the price we pay for civilization." In fact, taxation is a most uncivilized way of obtaining funds, given that it boils down to nothing less than extortion.
Why are Maine farmers dumping milk? The way to respond to falling prices, writes Robbie Blevins, is to offer a better product more efficiently. The signal of the need to do so is a feature of free enterprise, the system in which the consumer—which is to say, the common person—is king.
Gore's remarks come at a curious time, his party having suffered some terrible electoral defeats in the last election cycle. A proposal to create a Canadian-like system in Oregon was defeated 80-20 at the polls. Yet there are reasons why the socialist idea remains popular.
Lew Rockwell asks us to think of a robber who promises to stop coming through your front door if you promise to leave open the back door. So it is with the state that promises to stop taxing your income if you let it tax your consumption. The issue is not the method; it is the amount.
Millions of students begin their first day of classes with a profound awareness of the impending make-or-break tests, to be taken at regular intervals from the first to the twelfth grade. On the face of it, writes Jeffrey Tucker, it seemed to work. But reformers forgot one thing: we are dealing here with public school.
