November 01, 2000 -
Wheels
of progress fall off the Protestant work ethic
- Sharon Beder, SMH.com.au, There must be greater
goals for a society to aim for than simply producing
more and more consumer goods, writes Sharon Beder. It
is no accident that the downsizing of the 1980s and
'90s has been accompanied by a resurgence in the
propaganda aimed at reinforcing the work ethic. The
wave of retrenchments and sackings in English-speaking
countries has been accompanied by growing inequalities
in pay between executives and ordinary workers and an
increasing substitution of full-time permanent jobs
with insecure, temporary and part-time jobs...
November 16, 2000 -
NY
TIMES: Saying Income Tax Is Illegal - LAKE SHASTA,
Calif. Al Thompson squeezed most of his manufacturing
company's 28 employees into a conference room here in
October to say he had good news: Income taxes must be paid
by only a few Americans, mostly those working for
foreign-owned companies. So, he told the workers, they would
not have to pay income taxes ever again. His business is
exempt, too, he said...
November 30, 2000 - Abortion
- A Libertarian Perspective - by Michael K.
Barnett, The LP has traditionally not taken a stand on
this issue, as it is a thorny one. Some of us view the
Libertarian principle of self-ownership granting everyone
the right to life, liberty and honestly-acquired property as
"obviously" granting the right to life to the
unborn. Others view the unborn as property of the mother, to
dispose of as she wishes, same as a kidney until separation
from the mother during birth creates a separate individual
with individual rights. Both of these are principled stands,
and I can see how true Libertarians may fall into either
camp. What separates them is the defining characteristic of
what it takes to be an individual with an individual's
rights...
November 27, 2000 - Americans
weigh in on proper e-etiquette - Survey finds unease
about technology, By Sue Kirchhoff, Globe Staff, WASHINGTON
- Sending a party invitation via e-mail is certainly proper.
Quitting your job is not. Talking on a cell phone in the
grocery store is probably acceptable e-etiquette. Taking a
call while in church or synagogue clearly crosses the
line. As more and more Americans communicate through
beepers, cell phones, and the once impersonal medium of
e-mail, standards for behavior are evolving. Despite a
relatively laid-back attitude toward electronic interaction,
Americans have some strong ideas about what constitutes good
manners in the wired era, according to a new national
survey...
November 22, 2000 - How
Greed Ruined the Web - Easy-money-hungry execs
and investors who followed the first wave of Net
visionaries nearly wrecked it for all. Now, sanity has
a second chance. It's an easy bet that an Internet
entrepreneur won't be Time's Person of the Year for
2000. In 1999, it was Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, whose
growing customer base, billions in stock market value,
and hearty guffaw exemplified the awesome potential of
the New Economy. This year's Web is characterized by
plummeting stock prices, thousands of layoffs, fleeing
senior execs, and shuttered sites...
November 30, 2000 -
The
Other Side Of Drug-Use Coin - So many U.S.
citizens are using and creating such a demand for illegal
drugs that producers will find ways and means to
supply. When one is stopped, another takes his
place. Tons of illegal drugs intercepted by the
warriors in the war against drugs don't seem to put any
lasting dent in the availability. Most of the stories
most of us see about users concern those who suffer from
addiction. But just as most users of alcohol do not
become alcoholics, most casual or recreational users of
illegal drugs do not become addicts. They don't
steal. They work at jobs and earn money and pay for
their drugs. You may even know some of them without
knowing they use...
November 23, 2000 - GIVING
THANKS - Native American Thanksgiving Prayer
- "Great
Spirit, Creator of all that we see, hear, smell, taste,
and all that we touch.
Mother Earth, Make Ina, Womb of all beings, Provider of
all our needs..."
January 27,1999 -
On
Liberty, the Right to Know, and Public Discourse: The Role
of Transparency in Public Life - Amnesty
International has long been an effective champion of free
speech, one of the basic human rights. Free speech is both
an end in itself - an inalienable right that governments
cannot strip away from the citizenry - and a means to other
equally fundamental goals. Free speech provides a necessary
check on government: a free press not only makes abuses of
governmental powers less likely, it also enhances the
likelihood that basic social needs will be met. Amartya Sen,
the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in economics, has
argued forcefully that famines do not occur in societies in
which there is a free press.1
It is not the lack of food in the aggregate that gives rise
to famines, but the lack of access to food by the poor in
famine regions. A free press exposes these problems; once
exposed, the failure to act is absolutely intolerable...
November 05, 2000 -
Separation
of Powers - Executive Orders - Efficiency and order
were important concerns, but they were not as important as
liberty. The framers wanted to ensure
domestic tranquility and prevent future rebellions, but
they also wanted to forestall the emergence of a home-grown
George III. Accordingly, they allotted certain powers
to the national government and reserved the rest for the
states, thus establishing a system of
federalism.... Even this was not enough. They
believed they needed additional means to limit the national
government...
November 01, 2000 - WHO
SHOULD DECIDE??? - Here's a new version of
the popular "Nolan Chart," also known as the
"World's Smallest Political Quiz". This one
was developed by David Boaz of the Cato Institute...
November 04, 2000 - The
Ideas of Liberty - From the Cato Institute -
The classical liberal, or libertarian, approach to morality
and politics brings together related themes that will be
both placed in their historical context and woven together
more tightly in the coming modules. In this module, the
basic ideas of individual and imprescriptible rights,
spontaneous order, and the rule of law are presented and
examined...
Find
The Presidential Candidate That Best Matches Your Views!
- The most comprehensive presidential candidate selector
on the Web! You tell us your political views, we
compare them to the presidential candidates and then
show you the best match!
November 05, 2000 -
"Why
I Vote" - I
was born in Russia and lived twenty-four years of my life
there. Though it is a country with beautiful nature and
abundant natural resources, it is also a country where you
never experience true liberty. Why, because only where the
government fears the people, you have liberty. In Russia the
people feared the government and it led to tyranny. To
understand what I just said, you have to know and understand
communist ideology that is so prevailing in Russian
government and the minds of the Russian people. Throughout
my life, I was taught that I had to give up my rights for
the sake of the “common good”, and people did give up
their rights, while at the same time they lost “free
choice”. Russia ended up in a police state with control of
the government in every area of the individual’s life.
With loss of free choice, privacy of one’s life was
destroyed and without it there was no freedom...
