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Egalitarianism in Football

The sports section of the November 18th edition of the Globe and Mail (Canada’s national newspaper) carried an article about Doug Flutie, the star quarterback of the Toronto Argonauts. The Argos are Toronto’s team in the Canadian Football League; they had just won the Grey Cup, the CFL’s national championship, a few days earlier. Flutie […]

A Double Standard of Justice Toward Microsoft

In 1988, Microsoft offered manufacturers of personal computers a considerable discount on the licensing fees they pay to install MS-DOS and Windows operating system on new PCs prior to their leaving the factory. In exchange it required manufacturers to pay for each computer they make, whether or not it included MS-DOS. Microsoft now requires PC […]

Antitrust Against Justice

The suit against Microsoft by the U.S. Department of Justice is, in fact, a grave act of injustice. To understand this, it is necessary to look at the background and legal context of this case. America’ antitrust laws are highly ambiguous. They create offenses for which there is no clear definition, such as “unfair competition,” […]

Supreme Court to Decide: Whose Kids Are They Anyway?

Do parents have the right to decide which friends or extended family their children will spend time with? On Jan. 12, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider this question when it hears oral arguments in the case of Troxel v. Granville. “The case’s larger issue is whether or not the Supreme Court will reaffirm that […]

Cop Haters Dearly Loved in Hollywood

Tom Alciere, an obscure Republican lawmaker from New Hampshire, received nationwide media attention this week for posting remarks on the Internet about killing cops. What a fool. If Mr. Alciere had written his crude rantings in rhyme and embarked on a music career instead of a political one, he’d be making millions of dollars and […]

The U.S. Government’s Assault on Microsoft

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently accused Microsoft of violating U.S. antitrust laws, and asked a federal court to fine Microsoft an unprecedented 1$ million per day until the “violations” cease. Microsoft’s “crime” was to include its Internet Explorer software program (for browsing the Internet) as an integral component of its popular Windows 95 […]

The Big Lie in Hollywood: The Hollywood Ten Were Not Victims But Villains

November 24 marks the 50th anniversary of fifty of Hollywood’s leading executives and moguls firing the Hollywood Ten. These ten filmmakers had been cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to divulge their political affiliations to the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC] investigation into communist infiltration in Hollywood. The anniversary of the Hollywood blacklist against […]

The Pied Pipers of Tribalism: The “Million Woman March” Should Have Promoted Individualism Not Tribalism

In nineteenth century Africa, blacks were sold into slavery by their community leaders. The leaders of the Million Woman March are trying to repeat history. The 500,000 attendees at the October 25, 1997 march in Philadelphia listened to speakers extolling the theme “Sisters Healing Sisters.” The mission statement says: “Great-grandmother taught grandmother. Grandmother taught mother. […]

Feminization of the Military

“Boy, what’s that @#&*! growing under your nose? It looks like a &@*@#. You’d better get that &@*#! off your face by the next formation.” It was July 1959. With about 60 other recruits, I was being welcomed to basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. According to John Leo’s “A Kinder, Gentler Army” (“U.S. […]

The Accuracy of Environmentalist Predictions

In December, President Clinton goes to Kyoto, Japan to talk about warding off a predicted calamity of global-warming. He’s going to return and tell us that high energy taxes are necessary to reduce coal, oil and natural gas consumption. There’s no dispute that energy taxes will hurt our economy and standard of living. Before we […]

Economics of Unionism

The Teamsters’ strike, and its pending settlement, against United Parcel Service (UPS) gives us a chance to think about unions and labor issues. In a free society, people have the right to form voluntary associations. Therefore, any impediment, including so-called right-to-work laws, to people joining and forming labor unions is offensive. On the other hand, […]

Extortion or Voluntary Exchange

Last month, Autumn Jackson was convicted of extortion, con- spiracy, and crossing state lines to commit a crime. When sentenced in October, she faces up to 12 years in prison and a fine up to $750,000. Miss Jackson’s in hot water because she demanded $40 million from Cosby in exchange for her silence about being […]

Ayn Rand is Not Going to Go Away: A Letter By a Professor of Philosophy

On October 5, 1997, the New York Times Book Review section published a “review” of the Journals of Ayn Rand, ed. David Harriman (Dutton 1997) by conservative hack, David Brooks, of The Weekly Standard. The Standard, and related conservative groups, have embarked on a campaign publicly to distinguish themselves from individualist social/political thinkers and movements, […]

The Wrong Education Target

A Washington Post editorial (7/24/97) said that had the reading portion of the Stanford Achievement Test been used as this year’s criterion for promotion, 33 percent of D.C.’s third-graders and 29 percent of its eighth-graders would have been left down. Test results in math were just as dismal: three out of four eighth-graders and one […]

Graduated Tax for Medicare Is Immoral

The U.S. Congress has been considering a steep increase in Medicare taxes for higher-income people. A tax that has been flat since its inception in the 1960s is suddenly about to become a graduated tax. If the measure becomes law, the tax for higher-income earners will jump from about $500 annually to more than $2,000. […]

People Helping Tyrants

In pursuit of what’s deemed as worthy objectives, decent people often pave the way for tyranny. The process usually begins by the piecemeal destruction of the foundations of liberty: private property, rule of law, voluntary exchange and limited government. Those basic rights often stand in the way of do-gooders’ objectives. Once those foundations have become […]

Public Service and Private Misery

Jonas Salk once named the ambition that guided his career: “I wanted to do independent work and I wanted to do it my way.” His ideas were opposed by the scientific establishment, but he persevered, holding nothing above the verdict of his own mind. The result of his fierce independence was the first effective polio […]

Should Laws Be Obeyed?

Should we obey laws? It all depends; some laws aren’t worthy of obedience. “There you go again, Williams;” you say, “what kind of society would there be if people decided which laws they’d obey or disobey?” That might be a problem but let’s look at it. During several visits to South Africa, during its apartheid […]

Appeasing Dictatorship: From Munich to Hong Kong

“I believe it is peace in our time,” declared Neville Chamberlain to a crowd of exuberant Britons almost sixty years ago. Chamberlain had just capitulated to Hitler’s demand that a portion of Czechoslovakia be “given back” to Germany. Hitler was rewarded with the Sudetenland in 1938 in the now-infamous Munich Agreement–and the Allies were rewarded […]