Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty

From Publishers Weekly
A critic of governmental hypocrisy in his exposes The Fair Trade Fraud and The Farm Fiasco , Bovard over-extends himself in this libertarian broadside against government interventions such as school condom-giveaway programs and the minimum wage. He makes worthy points, however, arguing, for example, that only those who can afford to sue can protect their property rights and that the need for drunk-driving checkpoints results from police incompetence in controlling previously convicted drunken drivers. But Bovard proffers sweeping statements like "Civil rights law has gone from letting black people sit at luncheon counters to entitling people with infectious diseases to prepare and serve them lunch." Another shocker: "The federal tax system has turned individuals into sharecroppers of their own lives ." A bit less bluster and more discretion would have produced a more effective polemic. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
From Justice Department officials seizing people's homes based on mere rumors to the IRS and its master plan to prohibit the nation's self-employed from working for themselves to the perpetrators of the Waco siege, government officials are tearing the Bill of Rights to pieces. Today's citizen is now more likely than ever to violate some unknown law or regulation and be placed at the mercy of an administrator or politician hungering for publicity. Unfortunately, the only way many government agencies can measure their "public service" is by the number of citizens they harass, hinder, restrain, or jail. Already a major issue in the deliberations of the Congress that took office in January of 1995, the power and size of government is certain to be a prominent factor in the 1996 presidential elections. Lost Rights provides a highly entertaining analysis of the bloated excess of government and the plight of contemporary Americans beaten into submission by a horrible parody of the Founding Fathers' dream.



From the Publisher
Praise for James Bovard's Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty: "Remarkable...Mr. Bovard's unrivaled research has resulted in a virtual encyclopedia of modern government abuse." --The Wall Street Journal "There may be no more cogent critic of today's welfare state than journalist James Bovard...Lost Rights is his finest work yet." --National Review "A gold mine...a virtually bottomless pit of government incompetence, dishonesty or outright repression at all levels." --The Washington Times "I would go out of my way to recommend the remarkable book--400 densely packed pages about the mounting war on poverty and contract, the tyranny of taxation, and the growth of federal power in the guise of expanding our rights. In this field, Bovard is surely the leading researcher in the country...Brilliant!" --American Spectator "Chilling...James Bovard has collected in one volume the evidence of what Americans' willingness to trade freedom for security has cost them...Bovard's catalogue of petty tyrannies is worth your attention. Read it to be reminded why eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." --Los Angeles Daily News


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From Justice Department officials seizing people's homes based on mere rumors to the IRS and its master plan to prohibit the nation's self-employed from working for themselves to the perpetrators of the Waco siege, government officials are tearing the Bill of Rights to pieces. Today's citizen is now more likely than ever to violate some unknown law or regulation and be placed at the mercy of an administrator or politician hungering for publicity. Unfortunately, the only way many government agencies can measure their "public service" is by the number of citizens they harass, hinder, restrain, or jail. Already a major issue in the deliberations of the Congress that took office in January of 1995, the power and size of government is certain to be a prominent factor in the 1996 presidential elections. Lost Rights provides a highly entertaining analysis of the bloated excess of government and the plight of contemporary Americans beaten into submission by a horrible parody of the Founding Fathers' dream.


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