Did the Government Drive Aaron Swartz to Suicide?
Swartz faced 13 counts under the 1984 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and, if convicted, could have faced 35 years in federal prison and a million-dollar fine. ...
About: Sheldon Richman
Posts by Sheldon Richman
The Hagel Brouhaha
The anti-Hagel hysteria carries a message different from the one getting all the attention: If Hagel is “out of the mainstream” of foreign-policy thinking, the range of permissible thinking...
The Washington Con Game Goes On
Much of what government does seems unfathomable until you remember one thing: the politicians think the people are morons. Take the latest example: the effort to avert the “fiscal cliff.”...
Gun-Control, Mental-Health Laws Won’t Make Us Safer
We would do the young victims of the Newtown shootings no honor by frantically enacting futile restrictions on freedom. It may be satisfying to “do something.” But two things ought...
The Fight Over Right-to-Work
When a state passes a right-to-work law, as Michigan did this month, employers in that state can no longer agree to require workers to pay union fees as a...
Washington’s Budget Con Game
If the “fiscal cliff” controversy isn’t enough to convince you this government is one big fraud, what will it take? The budget mess was delivered to us by the...
Nullify the Drug War!
Thomas Jefferson said a revolution every 20 years would be a good thing. Regardless of what one thinks of that, perhaps a little constitutional crisis every now and then...
Petraeus Fell for the Wrong Reason
David Petraeus has fallen — but not as he should have. Before being disgraced by an extramarital affair, the retired four-star general and ex-CIA director should have been shamed...
The Election’s Unanswered Question
Thank goodness the tedious presidential campaign is over. It was enough to put a caffeine freak into a coma. If all you cared about was the horse race, you...
Life without FEMA?
If you wonder what life would be like without a particular government agency, it is not enough simply to subtract the agency from a picture of our current world....
Americans Should Reject Obama-Romney Foreign Policy
It’s been noted, mostly by humorists, that Romney continuously expressed his agreement with Obama across a range of issues: drone warfare, Iran, Afghanistan, even Iraq. He tried to manufacture...
America’s Drone Terrorism
The NYU/Stanford study “Living Under Drones” goes beyond reporting estimates of the civilian casualties inflicted by the deadly and illegal U.S. campaign. It also documents the hell the Pakistanis...
Clinton’s Legacy: The Financial and Housing Meltdown
Bill Clinton is certainly full of himself these days. That might have something to do with the fact that no one is likely to ask why he hasn’t owned...
The Glaring Contradiction in Anti-Iran Policy
President Barack Obama, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have at least one thing in common when it comes to Iran. All are guilty...
The Hubris of Romney and Obama
Adam Smith wrote that power “would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise...
Romney, Taxes, and Dependence on Government
Low-income people aren’t the only ones dependent on government. Another group is even more dependent: the people of the corporate world who expect government to provide bailouts, guarantees, and...
Deeper in the Afghan Quagmire
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has designated the Haqqani network a terrorist organization. What is the Haqqani network? Wikipedia says that it "was nurtured by the U.S. Central Intelligence...
Medicare Is Doomed
When Democrats accuse Republicans of wanting to “end Medicare as we know it,” they are right. But Democrats do too. “Medicare as we know it” is no longer an...
Paul Ryan: Would-be Savior of the Welfare/Warfare State
Paul Ryan may be the conservative’s conservative, but understand what that means: He’s out to save the welfare/warfare state from its own intrinsic unsustainability. He’s no small-government man. ...
Don’t Let Aurora Shooting Curtail Right of Self-Defense
The shooting in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater has incited the usual debate over guns. One side says tighter gun restrictions could have prevented the horrible incident that night....