From the archives.

20

YEARS AGO

February 1997

"More broadly, the GOP agenda is not entirely consistent. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) admitted to reporter Elizabeth Drew that Republicans 'have some conflicting interests, and we want block granting and freedom for local and state governments when it fits our agenda, and we want restrictions when that fits our agenda."'

JOHN J. PITNEY JR.

"The Many Faces of Newt Gingrich"

"Judging from poll data, there is currently little support for legalization. But as the passage of Props. 200 and 215 forces prohibitionists to justify their policies, and the country's experience with the open medical use of illegal substances gets underway, that debate should prove to be one full of possibilities."

NICK GILLESPIE

"Prescription: Drugs"

"Although everyone 'knows' that science must be publicly funded, everyone also knows that nearly all the great leaps of classical science--Newtonian physics, relativity, atomic theory, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, genetics, and many others--occurred with no government aid whatever."

JOHN STADDON

"Who Should Pay for Science?"

"The great hallmark of assimilation, American style, is that immigrants are free to retain or discard as much or as little of their homeland cultures as they wish without compromising their assimilation."

PETER D. SALINS

"Assimilation, American Style"

25 YEARS AGO

February 1992

"The politics of resentment are abroad in the land--and this time they aren't the monopoly of egalitarian Democrats buying votes with envy. The recession is an obvious reason for the surge of resentment. But it is, despite the pain, too fleeting to explain the whole phenomenon."

VIRGINIA POSTREL

"New Bedfellows"

"By giving parents, rather than the state, the final word on educational policy, school choice would settle some of the most vexing civil-liberties questions of our time, not through the victory of one ideology or religious outlook over another, but by allowing each family to select a school in harmony with its beliefs."

DAVID E. BERNSTEIN

"Why Johnny Can't Pray"

"Mexico's timidity about setting up a water market is similar to California's reluctance to let farmers sell their water rights to higher--mostly urban and drought-stricken--bidders. In both cases, urban water users will suffer. In Mexico, the poor suffer the most."

RHONA MAHONY

"Deep Water"

"The campaign coverage of 1992 will present a bewildering welter of polls, good and bad. The stories that quote them carry the same...