An editorial headlined, “Your Time is Coming – Make it Count” in Sunday’s Nashville Tennessean denounced my bad attitude: Staunch libertarian James Bovard cynically decries efforts to promote participation in elections, saying, “Trumpeting the importance of voting deludes people into thinking that they have a leash on the government.” We could not more vehemently disagree. […]
Tag Archives | Epigrams
My USA Today Op-ed: Don’t Trust White House on Syria
USA Today September 5, 2013 We can’t trust White House Syria claims: Column by Jim Bovard The administration needs to learn from the past and tell the whole truth. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are adamant that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians last month. […]
Obama, NSA, Gulf of Tonkin, & Governing as Lying
This is the 49th anniversary of Congress’s passage of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, by which the Lyndon Johnson administration lied the nation into the Vietnam War. The resolution was spurred by false assertions of multiple North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. ships. At a National Security Council meeting on the evening that the first report came […]
The Voting Rights Mirage
The Washington Times, July 3, 2013 BOVARD: The voting rights mirage Satisfied to cast ballots, Americans stand idle while other freedoms are ravished by James Bovard Liberals are aghast at the Supreme Court ruling last week that struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg denounced the […]
Wash. Times: Transportation Security Does Not Include Freedom to Molest
Washington Times, June 20, 2013 BOVARD: Transportation security doesn’t include the freedom to molest Passengers aren’t feeling it for TSA’s invasive scanners The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) treats American travelers like cattle being chuted to a civil liberties slaughterhouse. Thanks to a federal appeals court, citizens have a golden opportunity to tell the agency […]
My 1998 piece: The IRS, Now & Forever
The Foundation for Economic Education reposted this as a “timely classic” last week. A few highlights: *In recent years, IRS agents have been indoctrinated to see taxpayers as a class enemy. *The only Americans who have legal rights, in the IRS’s eyes, are those who can afford to hire lawyers and topnotch accountants to fight […]
My 2006 Book Review on Warrantless Wiretapping Scandal
Here’s my 2006 review of the James Risen book that ignited the first uproar about the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping. I noted: James Risen’s revelations on pervasive National Security Agency warrantless spying on Americans shred the final pretenses to legality of the Bush administration. Now the debate is simply whether, as Bush and his supporters […]