Cook’s achievement lies in tracing the evolution of jihad from Muhammad to Osama, following how the concept has changed through fourteen centuries.
CULTURE
The Faith-Based Attack on Rational Government
America was established for a secular purpose: the protection of individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Constitution neither mentions God (except to forbid religious tests for public office) nor imbues government with any religious purpose…
John Stuart Mill Illusion of Calculating “Social Utility”
What John Stuart Mill rejected in attempting to redesign society according to this shaky premise of “social utility” was the older tradition upon which the great achievements of winning liberty was based in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the traditio…
Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony’s Long Romance With the Left
Ayn Rand was ridiculed and derided for years by journalists like Victor Navasky for her evaluation of Song of Russia. But she was completely correct.
The “Sin” of Pride
What does the Catholic Church stand for today? If one examines this question closely, the answer does not give cause for celebration.
The Bait and Switch of “Intelligent Design”
The central issue under debate is whether “intelligent design” is, in fact, a genuine scientific theory or merely a disguised form of religious advocacy–creationism in camouflage.
The Michael Jackson Trial
The good thing about the Michael Jackson trial is that it’s currently the top headline news. Better this than another 9/11, a school shooting or thousands of soldiers killed in Iraq at one time. The bad thing about the Michael Jackson trial is that it’s a...
College Admissions Voodoo
Every year about this time, high school students get letters of admission — or rejection — from colleges around the country. The saddest part of this process is not their rejections but the assumption by some students that they were rejected because they...
Oscar Without Glamour
Why Hollywood is losing its luster.
Supreme Court Should Uphold Rights, Not Majority Sentiment in Ten Commandments Cases
Judicial review, properly conceived, is merely one method among many by which judges resolve legal conflicts.
The Phonics vs. “Whole Language” Controversy
The controversy over how to teach reading is not a narrow, technical dispute. It is a broad, philosophic disagreement, with crucial educational implications.
Ayn Rand: A Legacy of Reason and Freedom
Ayn Rand left a legacy in defense of reason and freedom that serves as a guidepost for the American spirit–especially pertinent today when America and what it stands for are under assault.
Ayn Rand and Song of Russia: Communism and Anti-Communism in 1940s Hollywood
Ayn Rand called this movie pro-Soviet propaganda, a deliberate whitewash of the terrible reality of life under communism.
Children Having Children: A “Badge of Honor”?
A few years ago, I visited a friend living in Cleveland ‘s inner city. As we sat on my friend’s porch, not one, but two teenage girls — visibly pregnant — walked by. My friend cheerfully called out their names. They smiled and waved back as...
Meditations on Meditation
Q: What can meditation do for me? A: People who meditate are generally trying to reduce stress. Reducing stress is fine. However, there’s nothing mystical about meditation that can help you. Letting your mind stop can be useful, but it also can be an indication...
Higher Education in Decline, Part 2
The nation’s primary and secondary education is a national disgrace; will we allow our undergraduate education to become so as well?
Loving Life: A Case-Study in Presenting Objectivism Objectively
Loving Life is an introduction to the Objectivist Ethics that assumes no prior knowledge of Ayn Rand’s ideas.
Defending the Separation of Church and State: A Call to Liberals
If the liberals truly wish to maintain the separation of Church and State (and its corollary – intellectual freedom), then they must reverse their antagonism to individual rights, and join us, the capitalists, in championing for a return to the original American form …
Salesman of Americanism: The Life and Music of John Philip Sousa
Sousa was above all a “Salesman of Americanism” through his music.
The Ten Commandments vs. America
Can a nation of freedom, individualism and the pursuit of happiness be based on the Ten Commandments?
School Violence Toleration
I’m wondering just when parents, especially poor minorities, will refuse to tolerate day-to-day school conditions that most parents wouldn’t dream of tolerating. Lisa Snell, director of the Education and Child Welfare Program at the Los Angles-based Reason...
George Lucas vs. The Stormtroopers
To paraphrase Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead, George Lucas created Star Wars and George Lucas has the right to destroy Star Wars.
Columbus Day: The Cure for 9/11
On Columbus Day, in sum, we celebrate Western civilization with the utter certainty that it is good according to an objective standard: man’s life. America therefore deserves to prevail against the religious totalitarians who would destroy industrial civilization and re…
The Islamic States of America?
The hardest thing for Westerners to understand is not that a war with militant Islam is underway but that the nature of the enemy’s ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with …
The Philosophical Foundations of Heroism
What, the first question must be, is the distinguishing essence of heroism?
Art Finally Comes to George Mason University
Controversial art historian Lee Sandstead will speak this Monday evening at the Johnson Center on something this campus hasn’t seen or heard about in decades–art. What? How can I say this? Isn’t there art everywhere at Mason? Well, yes, there is a...
It Takes One to Know One–Or Does It?
Q: What do you think of the old saying, “It takes one to know one”? A: It’s a package deal. By package deal I mean the lumping of a true concept with a false one. The evil of a package deal is that the truthful part of the statement motivates one to...
Choosing a College
When a student at New York University committed suicide recently, it was the 6th suicide at that same institution this year. The suicide of someone in the prime of life, and getting an education that promises a bright future, should be much rarer than it is. But NYU...
Self-Interest Trumps Niceness
Q: What’s more important, being nice or being self-interested? A: It’s good to be nice. Being nice is more often in one’s self-interest than not. For example: Are you more willing to spend your money at a business who treats its customers nicely or...
Reflecting America: World Trade Center Memorial Should Celebrate America’s Producers
“Reflecting Absence,” the winning WTC memorial design, offers a list of randomly scattered names, a pool, and some trees, which elicit in most viewers nothing but bemused boredom. For those of us who loved the sight of the Towers and still grieve over the...
Vouchers are Socialism
Vouchers effectively turn private schools into public schools.
Tax Credits–and Not Vouchers–for Education
The New York Sun has wisely opposed campaign finance regulations as violating the freedom of speech. The Sun has also argued that New York City’s public campaign financing system deserves to be scrapped. Wasn’t it Thomas Jefferson who wrote “that to...
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