CULTURE
Why Most Civilizations Fail, Part 1: The Island Paradox
Geography alone can’t explain why some isolated, resource-poor societies like Iceland thrived while others like Easter Island collapsed.
The Meaning of President’s Day
America’s Early Presidents Were Admirable Men of Principle– Let us Hope we can Find More Like Them
Left Can’t Meme
Richard Dawkins coined “meme” in 1976 to describe units of cultural transmission—ideas that replicate like genes.
This Valentine’s Day Celebrate The True Meaning of Love
Love is far too precious to be offered indiscriminately. It is above all in the area of love that egalitarianism ought to be repudiated. Love represents an exalted exchange–a spiritual exchange–between two people, for the purpose of mutual benefit.
LAW
DHS Administrative Warrants, ICE Immigration Arrests, and the Fourth Amendment
Can executive officials authorize themselves to enter a home? Or must they obtain a warrant from a judicial officer?
The United States of America is Not a Democracy
If we’ve become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny.
Fairness Doctrine 2.0
Dictating content under the threat of government reprisal is censorship, and censorship always involves a violation of property rights.
More Guns, Less Murder?
The year 2025 is shaping up to have the lowest homicide rate since 1900. Let that sink in. The lowest in 125 years. Law-abiding citizens carrying firearms aren’t the problem. They never were.
MARKETS
America’s Triage: On Trump’s Economic Nationalism
“You should not be dependent for that which is fundamental to your sovereignty on any other nation.”
The Delusions and Dangers of the New Mercantilism
Trump has assumed the powers of a near absolute monarch to decide when, why, and against whom he will arbitrarily raise and lower and raise again tariffs on the importation of goods into the United States.
The Politics and Economics of Plato, Aristotle, and the Ancient Greeks
In Aristotle, we find a more subtle and sophisticated understanding of some economic themes than in Plato. While Aristotle’s answers were incomplete and often misdirected, as well as incorrect, he at least was among the first to ask the types of questions that centuries later became part of the heart of economic analysis and understanding.
In Defense of “Evil Billionaire” Jim Pattison
We should thank billionaire entrepreneurs like Jim Pattison and patronize their businesses – not attack them.
WORLD
An Open Letter from Claire Lai, Daughter of Chinese Political Prisoner Jimmy Lai, to Eileen Gu, the American-born Star of China’s Winter Olympics Team
On Feb. 9, at the age of 78, my father was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for championing these freedoms through the newspaper he founded and published. I believe that you — a celebrated member of the Chinese Olympic team and someone deeply respected within Chinese society — could be a catalyst for a humanitarian gesture by the Chinese government.
Black History Month: Why Don’t They Teach About the Arab-Muslim Slave Trade in Africa?
Black history is American history. It ought not be “relegated” to a month, and slavery ought not be relegated to only the European slave trade.
War Without Killing, Killing Without War
The U.S. has ample opportunity to kill bad guys while leaving good guys—American and Iranian—unharmed.
Iranian Theocracy on the Brink? Why Protesters Deserve Our Moral Support
Elan Journo and Onkar Ghate examine why Iran’s ongoing uprising may be the regime’s most serious challenge yet—and why it deserves far more moral support from the free world.
SCI-TECH
The Rise and Fall of Wikipedia
The rise of Wikipedia was spectacular, implausible, and glorious. Its fall is equally disappointing, predictable, and inglorious.
Books: A Rebel in Eden: The War Between Individualism and Environmentalism
A Rebel in Eden: The War Between Individualism and Environmentalism, by Robert Bidinotto, explains the philosophic foundations of the modern political movement, theories that, in some cases, go back centuries.
The National Academies’ Perversion of Science
A new “report” by the prestigious National Academies engages in heavy fossil fuel benefit denial in order to claim that climate danger is worse than ever.
The Separation of State from Religion, Science, and Education (Part 8 of 10)
The system of public education could be abolished over the course of a generation, in a way that need not impose financial hardship on the parents of any child alive at the time of the abolition’s commencement.
POLITICS
DHS Administrative Warrants, ICE Immigration Arrests, and the Fourth Amendment
Can executive officials authorize themselves to enter a home? Or must they obtain a warrant from a judicial officer?
Decentralizing Public Health: Institutional Monopolies Are Fraying
It is ironic that the Trump administration, rightly, objects to the WHO’s mission creep and politicization but fails to see the same problem with the CDC in its own backyard.
The Worst Enemy of Black People According to Malcolm X
“The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have.” — Malcom X
How Not to Sell Free-Market Healthcare Ideas
Conceding the premise that if the government were only competent enough, it should be in charge of securing healthcare for everyone grants the moral high ground to those who want the government to take on a greater role in healthcare, making it harder to even imagine an alternative.