Free Republic

Rochester IN the days before Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary in Michigan, Mitt Romney and John McCain battled over what the government owes to workers who lose their jobs because of the foreign competition unleashed by free trade. Their rhetoric differed — Mr. Romney said he would “fight for every single job,” while Mr. McCain said some jobs “are not coming back” — but their proposed policies were remarkably similar: educate and retrain the workers for new jobs. All economists know that when American jobs are outsourced, Americans as a group are net winners. What we lose through lower wages is...

Senator Hatfield, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. President, Vice President Bush, Vice President Mondale, Senator Baker, Speaker O'Neill, Reverend Moomaw, and my fellow citizens. To a few of us here today this is a solemn and most momentous occasion, and yet in the history of our nation it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place, as it has for almost two centuries, and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is...

[Snip]...This Constitution prescribes a limited role for the federal government whose purpose is “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty ... “ This purpose statement should give Congress a clear focus on national priorities and the good of the nation as a whole. Unfortunately, many members of Congress have forgotten that oath and lost sight of our constitutional purpose. Instead of conducting our business in Congress with an eye toward what is best for the whole country, we fight about what...

'Nanny State' is the name given to government policies that treat adults like children and try to protect people from every possible harm or offense, especially from their own choices. Ultimately, it is about control, as shown in David Harsanyi's new book, Nanny State, which compiles numerous examples of what he terms the "tyranny of the busybody." The book's wide range and satiric tone are indicated by its long subtitle: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into a Nation of Children. Harsanyi, a columnist for the Denver Post, breaks up his chapters...

[Snip]...But one wonders whether his newfound supporters would really say that if they took a close look at his policies. With increasing frequency, Mr. Huckabee invokes his faith when advocating greater government involvement in just about every aspect of American life. In doing so, Mr. Huckabee has actually answered the prayers of the religious left. [Snip]...Democrats have made some inroads with evangelical voters. A recent Pew poll showed that the percentage of Americans who see the party as friendly to religion has increased to 30% from 26% since 2006. But no one has articulated the message of the religious left...

10. Airlines are solely to blame for the unfriendly skies. Media myth: Blame the airlines for all those flight delays; never mind the obsolete government-run agency creating the gridlock. 9. Consumer spending is the be-all, end-all of the economy. Media myth: Without excessive consumer spending – especially at Christmastime – the U.S. economy will collapse. 8. The stock market is trouble, whether it goes up or down. Media myth: One day the stock market can’t sustain growth; the next, we’re just one drop away from another crash. 7. Anyone who ‘denies’ global warming shouldn’t be taken seriously. Media myth: Global...

<p>Between 1994 and 2005, the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. is estimated to have doubled to around 12 million. Yet according the Department of Justice, over that same period the violent crime rate in the U.S. declined by 34.2% and the property crime rate fell by 26.4%, reaching their lowest levels since 1973. Crime has fallen in cities with the largest immigrant populations -- such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami -- as well as border cities like San Diego and El Paso, Texas.</p>

Catholic Church bishops, priests and other Church leaders in Latin America were once a reliable ally of the left, owing to the influence of "liberation theology," which tries to link the Gospel to the socialist cause. Today the Church is coming to recognize the link between socialism and the loss of freedom, and a shift in thinking is taking place.

I argued previously that liberty means the freedom of each adult to do or not do whatever he or she chooses as long as he or she accords the same freedoms to others. The most powerful justification for government in a land of true liberty is to prevent individuals from stepping on the same rights and freedoms of others. And while no one this side of sociopathy doubts the importance of keeping each of us from infringing willy-nilly on each other's rights, too many people regard organized infringement to be just fine. Indeed, some call it "progressive." "Progressives" yearn to...

I argued previously that liberty means the freedom of each adult to do or not do whatever he or she chooses as long as he or she accords the same freedoms to others. The most powerful justification for government in a land of true liberty is to prevent individuals from stepping on the same rights and freedoms of others. And while no one this side of sociopathy doubts the importance of keeping each of us from infringing willy-nilly on each other's rights, too many people regard organized infringement to be just fine. Indeed, some call it "progressive." "Progressives" yearn to...

You've probably seen Huckabee rail against CEO pay (if you haven't, see here and here, but until now, Huckabee has not been clear about what exactly he would do about CEO pay if he were President. Yesterday, CNBC's John Harwood asked Mike Huckabee just that. HUCKABEE: It’s a combination. It’s when one person losing his job who helped make the company successful and the person who steers the company either into bankruptcy or selling off it in pieces is taking that golden parachute of several hundred million dollars. I mean, there’s just something wrong about that, and every American knows...

Reconsidering Huck Membership issues. By Mark Hemingway MEMORANDUM DATE: December 20, 2007 TO: Mike Huckabee FROM: The Conservative Movement RE: Membership Renewal Application Mike: It’s your old buddies in the conservative movement here. We know the Iowa caucuses are only two weeks away but we’ve got to talk. We know you’ve endured the slings and arrows of some establishment folks and to a certain extent the piling on hasn’t been terribly fair. Many of your critics — George Will comes to mind — seem far more comfortable with the idea of Rudy Giuliani as president despite the fact that he’s...

The Congressional Black Caucus demanded an “emergency meeting” with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Monday night to address concerns ranging from the unfair distribution of earmarks to the need for Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts. In a letter to Pelosi last Thursday, Caucus Chairwoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.) said the caucus needed to discuss these “matters of extreme urgency” with the speaker as soon as possible. Pelosi agreed to meet with the caucus, Kilpatrick said Monday. But Kilpatrick would not elaborate on the specific requests she would make to the speaker. “It’s the end of the year and we’ll be looking...

[snip]...And if I want to remain a free man (as I most certainly do), I must accord my neighbor his own freedoms. I must accord him his freedoms as a practical matter, for if I coerce him to live as I think he should live, I unleash forces that likely will one day coerce me to live as someone else thinks I should live. I should also accord my neighbor his freedoms as a matter of proper ethics. True equality -- the equality celebrated by America's founding generation -- means that no one has the right to play God with...

[snip]Another question: Why are you so upset about this particular form of lawbreaking? After all, there are lots of laws, not all of them enforced with vigor. The suspicion naturally arises that the illegality is not what bothers you. What bothers you is the immigration. There is an easy way to test this. Reducing illegal immigration is hard, but increasing legal immigration would be easy. If your view is that legal immigration is good and illegal immigration is bad, how about increasing legal immigration? How about doubling it? Any takers?... [snip]But let's not kid ourselves that all we care about...

All too often defenders of free-market capitalism base their defense on the demonstration that free markets allocate resources more efficiently and hence lead to greater wealth than socialism and other forms of statism. While that is true, as Professor Milton Friedman frequently pointed out, economic efficiency and greater wealth should be seen and praised as simply a side benefit of free markets. The intellectual defense should focus on its moral superiority. Even if free markets were not more efficient and not engines for growth, they are morally superior to other forms of human organization because they are rooted in voluntary...

Should Americans worry that foreigners hold lots of dollars and dollar-denominated assets? Conventional wisdom says "yes." The alleged reason for this concern is that if foreigners suddenly dump these assets, their prices will fall, interest rates will rise, and the American economy will be severely destabilized. The end result will be a depression. [snip] A third fact to keep in mind is that if any large holder of dollar assets (including foreign governments and central banks) dumps these assets simply for the sake of dumping them -- or for the more sinister purpose of destabilizing the U.S. economy -- a...

Pat Buchanan's recent attempt to diagnose the sinking dollar demonstrates that ignorance of basic economics is not limited to the Left. Buchanan points out the plummeting value of the dollar relative to other currencies and major commodities such as gold (up 24% this year) and oil (up over 50% in 12 months). He then declares that "the prime suspect in the death of the dollar is the massive trade deficits America has run up" to "maintain her standard of living and to sustain the American Imperium." This diagnosis offers a tantalizing glimpse of the truth, yet shatters it with protectionist...

To hear most politicians talk, you’d think that exports are the key to a country’s prosperity and that imports are a threat to its way of life. Trade deficits—importing more than we export—are portrayed as the road to ruin. U.S. presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to get tough with China because of “unfair” trading practices that help China sell products cheaply. Republican candidate Mitt Romney argues that trade is good because exports benefit the average American. Politicians are always talking about the necessity of other countries’ opening their markets to American products. They never mention the virtues...

Democracy and Other Failures The theory of public choice helps explain why we get stuck with so many bad economic policies. Or does it?BY DOUGCAMPBELL Gravina Island, population 50, sits near the southeast corner of Alaska, just about 45 miles from the Canadian border. It has about 1,800 acres of timber and is accessible to the mainland via a seven-minute ferry ride. There wouldn’t be much more to say about Gravina Island, except that in 2005 it was on the receiving end of one of the most notorious cases of pork-barrel politics in U.S. history — a $223 million federal...