by James Bovard



Editorial Reviews

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.

Product 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.

Product Details

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; Reprint edition (September 15, 1995)
ISBN: 0312123337