From the archives.

15

YEAR AGO

June 2022

"Ashcroft's immediate response to the 9/11 attacks was to sink into a dark Orwellian morass of secret detentions, warrantless wiretaps, and eavesdropping on lawyers."

BRIAN DOHERTY

"John Ashcroft's Power Grab"

"Havana is famously seething with Cubans trying to pump dollars from tourists. Walk through the central city as a blond man in a white T-shirt, and you'll spend your days hearing the hissing 'kss-kss!' sound of people trying to grab your attention. It isn't all about money scams, cheap cigars, and prostitutes. Just as often--maybe more often--the approaching strangers and instant friends just want to talk, to practice their foreign languages, to pepper you with questions about the outside world."

MATT WELCH

"Foul Ball"

20

YEAR AGO

June 1997

"Personally, I don't care whether the 'cyber-rich' give away their millions (unless, of course, they give them to REASON). Through their own good work, they've already contributed enormously to the betterment of human life. They do, however, have a 'social responsibility' to take their money seriously: to resist suggestions that they should rush to give it away without considering the effects on the very freedoms that have made them prosper."

RICK HENDERSON

"How Green Is the Valley?"

"The threats are everywhere, we are told: If children are not hounded by ritual satanic child abusers at day care or by perverts on the Internet, then they're sucking in too much asbestos at school, or chewing on too much lead at home; if television, purportedly the babysitter of choice in the overwhelming majority of American homes, hasn't transformed kids into underperforming, slackjawed dullards, it has overstimulated them into feral children who must be tamed with Ritalin and Prozac; if we haven't failed the kids by not spending unlimited amounts of tax money on them, then we have transformed them into shallow consumers who can only measure affection in terms of dollars spent; if they're not at elevated risks of brain cancer from eating hot dogs, then they're likely to become punch-drunk from heading soccer balls; and on and on."

NICK GILLESPIE

"Child-Proofing the World"

30

YEAR AGO

June 1987

"The great myth of ideological crusades is to assume that once you exorcise the devil, there won't be another devil popping up. Once the Soviet Union is removed, there will be some other power, some other system, that you will find...