CULTURE
Mao: The Unknown Story
I just finished reading: Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Knopf, 2005. I do not necessarily recommend this book–not because it is bad–but because the content is so disgusting (though factual). Mao is clearly the worst monster in world...
Censoring the Danish Cartoons: NYU Chooses Appeasement Over Rights
If NYU seriously believed that there were security risks involved, they ought to have provided sufficient security.
Sudden Jihad Syndrome at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill
“Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers.” I wrote those words days after September 11, 2001, and have been criticized for them ever...
Whitewashing Academic Pathology
Jonathan Kay [National Post, “From The Academy, Portraits In Pathology”, March 13] is shamefully generous toward leftist academics such as Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky who venomously attack the West and Western values. Such creatures are not motivated...
A Morality for Success: What Self-Destructive Celebrities Need
The truth is that anyone who wants to achieve success––and then keep it, nurture it, and enjoy it––must practice reason and self-interest as moral virtues.
‘Crash’ Wins ‘Best Picture’
So Crash, one of the most philosophically objectionable movies that I’ve seen in a long time, won yesterday’s coveted Academy Award for “Best Picture.” Crash has two major themes: everyone is a racist, doesn’t know it, and no one is a...
The Jay Bennish ‘Diatribe as Geography’
Bennish is free to let loose his diatribes on his own time, but he has no right to demand a captive audience of high-school students.
Another Academic Casuality: Harvard University Ex-President Lawrence Summers
The resignation of Lawrence Summers as president of Harvard University tells us a lot about what is wrong with academia today. When he took office in 2001, Summers seemed like an ideal president of Harvard. He had had a distinguished career in and out of the academic...
Religious Terrorism vs. Free Speech
Ayatollah Khomeni’s attack on Salman Rushdie and his publishers represents religious terrorism. Americans oppose the Ayatollah’s death-decree, but our government is doing nothing to combat it.
The Cartoon Jihad: Free Speech in the Balance
A battle for Western freedom is being fought overseas. The specific object of the battle is merely a handful of cartoons. The outcome of the struggle, however, will reverberate for years.
Ready to Kill Over Cartoons
Muslim Fundamentalists Islamic Jihad Against Fleming Rose and Jyllands-Posten
Public Schools are Not Accountable to Parents
It’s time to start realizing the full potential of our greatest natural resource by making schools accountable to parents.
Assisted Suicide: A Moral Right
Conservatives crave to inject religion into the bloodstream of American law, thereby assisting in our own national suicide. However, they cannot succeed without the Supreme Court’s consent. Sooner or later, the Court must confront the main issue, and decide whether an individual’s right to life includes the right to commit suicide.
The Joy of Football: The Super Bowl Offers a Too-Rare Celebration of Goal-Achievement
In a world of life-and-death conflicts, spectator sports give us a “time-out”–an opportunity to relax and celebrate human skill, dedication, and success in a spirit of simple joy.
“God’s Land”
Some of the most interesting aspects of the war against terrorism are found not in coverage about the war in Iraq, but from coverage of talk in the United States. Consider this recent news report: Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli...
Bill O’Reilly and the Contradiction of the Conservative Movement
The conservative movement favors the expansion of religion/state fusion at home while opposing the inevitable results of religion/state fusion abroad.
“Intelligent Design” Is about Religion versus Reason
What makes “intelligent design” an inherently religious viewpoint is its appeal to a supernatural “designer.”
Riots in France: The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris
Riots that began on the outskirts of Paris have spread into the center of the French capital and to other communities in other parts of the country. Thousands of cars have been set on fire and the police and even medical personnel have been shot at. Like many other...
Villainy: An Analysis of the Nature of Evil (Part 5 of 5)
The morality of sacrifice lives on borrowed time.
Freedom of Religion?
There is no “freedom of religion” to do what it pleases. The only type of freedom relevant to religion is the right to practice religion privately, without imposing force on other people.
Reading vs. Ritalin
There’s so much talk of “attention deficit disorder” in children today. The unquestioned, never disputed premise is that brain chemistry causes young people not to pay attention. Yet attention deficits were never such problems in earlier eras. What...
Do We Really Care About Children?
I cringe with disgust when I hear politicians say, “We’re doing it for the children.” What’s worse is so many Americans mindlessly fall hook, line and sinker for the hype. Judging by our actions, Americans could not care less for future...
Villainy: An Analysis of the Nature of Evil (Part 4 of 5)
Religion is evil – but is not the worst evil that men must confront.
Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It (Chapter 2, Part 2 of 3)
If we are to establish an objective, fact-based morality, we need to discover a final end–one toward which all of our other goals and values are properly aimed.
Greek Honor: A Monumental Achievement
I’ve been reading some of the Greek historians, and am struck by how different the general attitude of the Greeks was compared to that of the modern world’s. What stands out most is the pride they show in living morally. I suppose the contrast is so stark because,...
Villainy: An Analysis of the Nature of Evil (Part 3 of 5)
In analyzing the means by which evil men gain the power to destroy, the question can be raised: Is there some deeper theory that underlies the ethics of sacrifice and gives rise to it?
Villainy: An Analysis of the Nature of Evil (Part 2 of 5)
How does Adolf Hitler – a dropout, a ne’er-do-well, an unemployed and unemployable itinerant – acquire life-and-death power over the great scientists, industrialists and thinkers of Western Europe?
The Dangers of “Having Faith”
Does it make sense to “have faith” as a way of coping with life? Literally speaking, to “have faith” means to suspend reason. Reason includes looking at facts, logic and using simple common sense. Reason is our means of coping and, ultimately,...
Villainy: An Analysis of the Nature of Evil (Part 1 of 5)
In the face of evil run rampant, it is crucially important to protect the benevolent universe premise.
Rights Before Religion: The Individual’s Right to Commit Suicide
Bush administration has no right to force such mindless, medieval misery upon doctors and patients who refuse to regard their precious lives as playthings of a cruel God.
“Intelligent Design”: Religion Masquerading as Science
Its advertising to the contrary notwithstanding, “intelligent design” is inherently a quest for the supernatural.
Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It (Part 7 of 7)
There is only one way to combat a morality that is against human life, and that is by embracing a morality that is for human life–a non-sacrificial morality–the morality of self-interest.
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