Archives: April 2026

5 years ago
April 2021

“[Sen. Josh] Hawley’s vision of government is a vision of vast power, used to forcibly advance a particular kind of life. Yet he also represents a link to the party’s past, following in the long tradition of socially conservative scolds and media panic mongers who have found a home on the American right….He may well be the GOP’s dark future, bringing the culture war into the social media era and repurposing the Progressive Era’s statist playbook for faux-populist ends.”
Peter Suderman
“Josh Hawley’s Toxic Populism”

“The awful events of January 6 accelerated trends in left-of-center circles, particularly within media and technology companies. Shocked at the sight of a violent mob lending street muscle to a lame-duck president’s conspiracy theory, journalists, academics, and social media companies seemed at once to agree on a two-pronged strategy: using the most maximally negative adjectives to describe the country’s still sizable Trump rump and banishing that bloc’s most deplorable figures from every platform within reach.”
Matt Welch
“The War on Free Speech Is About To Get a Lot Uglier”

20 years ago
April 2006

“Unlike an actual market system in education, public schools are still strapped with myriad local, state, and federal regulations. No matter how decentralized San Francisco schools become, they still must comply with the No Child Left Behind Act and abide by silly state laws, such as the California statute that forbids parents from bringing home-baked cupcakes to school to celebrate their children’s birthdays with classmates. Public school choice is at best a weak substitute for true school choice, where parents are not bound by excessive government regulations.”
Lisa Snell
“The Agony of American Education”

“The U.S. entered Iraq to decisively tilt the contest in favor of liberal democrats. Now, with the Iraqis increasingly encouraged to go it alone, can we honestly say the liberals will come out on top? America’s grand endeavor, at first a promise of salvation, has been cut down to an exercise in hoping.”
Michael Young
“How Did Iraq Go Wrong?”

35 years ago
April 1991

“Penalizing crime, not potential victims, is not only the approach most consistent with our legal and constitutional traditions, but also the only one that targets scarce resources toward the actual problem of violent crime. But if the problem, as city councils and police forces perceive it, is that probable cause and constitutional protections hamper their ability to wage war on drugs, then curfews do indeed represent an advance—an advance in government power.”
John Hood
“Curfew Craze”

“The word liberalism still implies an admirable commitment to civil liberties. But it once meant not only the freedoms conveniently identified in the Bill of Rights but a smaller, less intrusive government. It meant political and economic freedom.”
Jeff Lipkis
“The Brainchild of Earnest Gentlemen”

45 years ago
April 1981

“Telephone service is deteriorating nationwide, as our monopolistic telephone utilities struggle to keep up with soaring demand and do battle with increasingly unpredictable regulators. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Portions of the phone industry—long-distance service and terminal equipment—are being deregulated. And even the local service monopoly is under fire. New technology promises a vast array of new products and services, marrying phones with computers, television, copiers, and other devices.”
William Bahr
“Dial D for Deregulation”

50 years ago
April 1976

“The current U.S. political system delegates unlimited taxing powers to the legislatures. This, coupled with the desire of the majority of the voting population to enrich itself from the public treasury, has nearly brought on national bankruptcy. The public monies are being spent faster than they are being collected, and the end of that downward spiral means disaster. Will the recipients of public monies stop voting for the politicians who give them the goodies? It is not likely. So, it seems that a situation of “irreconcilable differences” is developing between tax producers and tax consumers, a truly revolting situation. And if this is true, as mounting evidence suggests, then perhaps the natural tendency to revolt is the cure.”
Karl Bray
“Taxes Are Revolting”