Op-Ed Columns 1999
Tim O'Brien, former
Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Michigan and noted libertarian
author and lecturer, has offered this regular opinion column free to Michigan
newspapers. The monthly column will present the libertarian position on issues
of the day -- both state and national. See the press release on this subject.
ATTENTION EDITORS: Feel free to reprint the articles listed below,
please inform the author, Tim O'Brien (at
tobrien3211@home.com)
when doing so, thank you.
- December 13, 1999 - A Disarming Proposal
- In an effort to reduce violent crime in public housing the
Detroit Housing Commission is going to participate in a
federal "gun buyback" program that will give residents $50
for every firearm they hand over to authorities....
[continue]
as published in the
Detroit
News
- October 21, 1999 - Reforming Campaign Finance Reform
-
Someone once observed that, when
legislation is for sale, the first thing that will be bought and sold is
legislators. It seems that everyone has finally come to realize that something
needs to be done about it...[continue]
as published in the
Detroit Free
Press
- September 16, 1999 - The Changing Face of
Racism
- There must be something seriously wrong with how we define our political spectrum if I can somehow have been moved from one end to the other while always standing in the same place.
Take the issue of racial discrimination...
[continue]
as published in the
Detroit
News
- July 1, 1999 - The Allen Park Veterans Clinic
- Last month six state reps (constituting a self-proclaimed "Task Force") convened the first of a promised series of public hearings on the status of the all but abandoned former Veterans Administration hospital complex in Allen Park. [continue]
as published in the Detroit News
- June, 1999 - Playing Post Office
- Whether to fight mail fraud as they allege or simply to legally ruin competition for the last monopoly protected area of their business, postal authorities will no longer play with renters of private mail boxes. [continue]
as published in the Detroit News
- April, 1999 - School Millage Fatigue
- On April 27 people in the Southgate school district will be forced to trudge to the polls for the fourth time in less than two years if they wish to express their opinion on a millage proposal. [continue]
as published in the
Detroit Free Press
- March, 1999 - Some Lessons from Black History
- On September 8, 1925 Dr. Ossian Sweet moved his family into their new two- story, brick home on the corner of Garland and Charlevoix on Detroit's east side....[continue]
as published in the
Detroit News
- February 9, 1999 - Libertarian Pragmatism
- Making the rounds in my political circle is our own version of the familiar "lightbulb" riddle that goes:
"How many libertarians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
The answer, of course, is: "None, the market will do it."
Once you get us beyond our natural tendency to harangue -- some
might even say, pontificate -- endlessly about the inherent immorality of
basing social institutions on coercion (we are actually naive enough to take
Jefferson's words about "the consent of the governed" seriously), our answer to
the challenge of providing public services always seems to be the same:
unfettered free enterprise.... [continue]
- February 2, 1999 - Know your Government
- In one of what has become a seemingly unending series of assaults on our
traditional, American way of life in the name of the War on Drugs, a new
federal database of banking transactions first went on-line right here in
Detroit in April of 1996... [continue]
- January, 1999 - Drunk with Power
- In his final radio address of 1998 President Clinton called for new federal
regulations requiring all fifty state governments to adopt a .08% blood-alcohol
standard for drunk driving... [continue]
as published in the
Detroit News
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