FROM THE ARCHIVES.

15

YEARS AGO

"We live under a constitution shaped by Morris' smart pen. But in more ways than this, we live in Gouverneur Morris' America. The worldly patron Founder of cities, trade, materialism, wit, pleasure, and style, Morris stood athwart history and waved it in. He saw the pluralistic, commercial form our freedom would take, and he saw that it was good."

WILL WILKINSON

"The Fun-Loving Founding Father"

"You could say Spurlock's experience reflects the reality of addiction: It's not something you fall into; you have to work hard at it. As the psychologist Jeffrey Schaler has observed, it takes 'an iron will' to be an addict. But this understanding of addiction--as a choice, not a disease--works against Spurlock's attempt to blame fast food chains for making us fat."

JACOB SULLUM

"Big Mac Attack"

25

YEARS AGO

July 1994

"So we are back to the old problems of economic regulation, the old reasons the government cannot effectively or fairly set prices or choose industrial winners: A centralized bureaucracy can never match the information flows of a decentralized market. And such a bureaucracy can never permanently resist the temptation to play favorites."

VIRGINIA POSTREL

"Fed Up"

"Suppose a lobby group wants Congress to ban 'death cars.' They are a little fuzzy about what, exactly, 'death cars' are, but the vehicles seem to share certain characteristics, including red paint and speedometers that go above 100 mph. These cars are said to be the favored vehicles of speeders and drunk drivers, and they are supposedly designed to cause accidents that kill as many people as possible. Supporters of the ban cannot back up their claims with mechanical explanations or statistics, but they can provide the gruesome details of crashes."

JACOB SULLUM

"Weapon Assault"

30

YEARS AGO

July 1989

"Their major weakness is an inability to adequately critique opposing views. Most leftist writers respond to conservative and libertarian arguments either by name-calling or dismissal as 'extreme' viewpoints unworthy of further consideration."

MARTIN MORSE WOOSTER

"Left-Wing Bananas"

"Someone once wrote: 'Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.' The problem is demonstrated by the most recent entry in a long line of scientific research purporting to show a causal link between gun availability and homicide. Funded by the federal government and...