CULTURE
Why Most Civilizations Fail, Part 2: Why Geographic Determinism Fails
Ultimate causation lies in ideas: why did some societies exploit their geographic advantages and others didn’t, and why did some overcome geographic disadvantages? Geography can’t answer those questions, but knowledge creation can.
“Ghost Student” Fraud, and Why Federal Student Aid Must Go
ABC News reported that “in California alone, nearly a third of all community college applicants in 2024 were identified as fraudulent.”
Victory for Choice: Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit Upheld
Last September, the Idaho teachers’ unions and other opponents of education choice filed a lawsuit to halt the tax credit program.
The Meaning of President’s Day
America’s Early Presidents Were Admirable Men of Principle– Let us Hope we can Find More Like Them
LAW
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.
A Prosecutor Breaks Down the ICE Officer Shooting of Renee Good in Minnesota
Objectivist former prosecutor James Valliant assesses the shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minnesota.
Legal Leviathan: Big Law Is Yet Another Problem
Big Law fundamentally distorts the American legal system by offering billions of dollars in free legal services to unconstitutional crusades and liberal pet projects while denying access to any opposition group.
The Death of Renee Good: When Ideology Overides Reason
This is not a story about a blameless victim. This is a story about ideology so divorced from reality that it sends people into dangerous confrontations apparently unprepared for obvious consequences.
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.”
In Defense of “Evil Billionaire” Jim Pattison
We should thank billionaire entrepreneurs like Jim Pattison and patronize their businesses – not attack them.
Can the Government Confiscate Your Gold?
The Real Risks of Owning Gold (and Why It’s Still Worth Owning)
Business Sucess Requires Principles Over Pragmatism
One of the reasons businesspeople dismiss moral principles is that they see them as burdensome duties to benefit others by sacrificing one’s own interests.
WORLD
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.
Venezeula’s Oil and the Monroe Doctrine
The capture of former Venezuelan President Maduro was a tactical success that has laid the foundation for cutting off China and Cuba from Venezuelan oil, while also limiting the growing regional influence that China, Russia, Iran, and other adversarial nations have enjoyed in the Western hemisphere.
Justice in Caracas
Venezuela has a chance at revival. America has removed a security threat. And autocrats everywhere just learned that no palace provides immunity from justice.
Brussels Bets the Farm
If the EU wishes to be honest about the concept of free markets and preserve its agricultural base, it must reduce the environmental, administrative, and social burdens imposed on its own farmers.
SCI-TECH
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.
“Greenwashing” and the Anatomy of Compromise
As Ayn Rand explains in her short essay The Anatomy of Compromise, compromising rational principles never works.
Science As an Excuse
How we find ourselves again in the awkward position of having trusted the experts and discovering that this was not a good idea.
How to Unleash Small Modular Reactors
Testimony to the House Oversight Committee on “The New Atomic Age: Advancing America’s Energy Future.”
POLITICS
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 Future of Liberty
Liberty is freedom from the government, specifically, freedom from the initiation of physical force by the government
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, ICE, and Illegal Immigration
ICE agents enforcing the law aren’t the threat to American values. The threat is the accumulated mass of people who broke the law to enter, refuse to assimilate, exploit systems meant for citizens, and vote for politicians who promise more of the same.
Make Health Care More Affordable by Correcting Government-Created Distortions
What follows is a menu of health care, welfare, and related tax changes that would reduce spending and deficits and show that Republicans are serious about restraining federal spending, reining in welfare abuse, and improving health care affordability by removing government-created distortions.