Q: Dr. Hurd, you advocate the use of pre-emptive force against terrorist states (e.g. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq) yet, in seeming contradiction, you assert that the initiation of physical force is never justified for any reason. Am I missing something ? A: Yes. First...
POLITICS
Republican Health Care Contradictions
At their National Convention, Republicans will complain of John Kerry’s habit of complicating complex issues with even more complex and mutually exclusive solutions. On the issue of health care, however, the Democratic Platform has clear and straight-forward...
Cheney vs. the Religious Right
Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent comments backing away from President Bush’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage drew criticism from the conservative Family Research Council, with President Tony Perkins saying: “I find it hard to believe...
The Third Pillar of Olympism?
High on the list of all-time greatest spins is surely the United Nations Environment Program’s justification for spotlighting its agenda at the 2004 Olympic Games. “Respect for nature was a feature of ancient Greek civilization,” UNEP Executive...
Congress Must Get Us Out of UNESCO. Again!
The nation laid Ronald Reagan to rest with a massive outpouring of respect and affection for the accomplishments of this great man. One of his most important achievements was to get the United States out of the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural...
Kerry’s Demand for Censorship
John Kerry has gained control of the Bush campaign and has, psychologically and strategically if not yet literally, won the presidential election. While Kerry’s own party systematically decimates Bush’s competence and character for daring to actually use...
President Bush’s “Sensitive” War
President Bush, raising high his mantle of a resolute commander-in-chief, has lambasted John Kerry for promising to fight a “sensitive” war. But no one has asked: what are the facts? Is President Bush himself fighting anything other than a...
Calling All Marxists! Life After Capitalism 2004 Conference
“The protests around the Republican National Convention are shaping up to be perhaps the largest this country has ever seen. Organizers are quietly discussing the possibility of having over 1 million people converging in the streets of New York City.”...
We Are Our Own Keepers
I am not my brother’s keeper. Nor are you. We need only be our own keepers.
Veterans vs. Kerry on Vietnam: Part 3
A President of the United States should know all sides of an issue. But he cannot be on all sides of an issue. He cannot keep flip-flopping like John Kerry. Despite attempts to depict criticisms of John Kerry by the Vietnam Veterans for Truth as something whose sudden...
The Appeasement Disease
President Bush’s foreign-policy critics at home and abroad share characteristics and visions that have previously led to worldwide chaos and untold loss of lives. These people believe that negotiation, appeasement and caving in to the demands of vicious...
Veterans vs. Kerry on Vietnam: Part 2 of 3
In addition to two key books about John Kerry — Douglas Brinkley’s pro-Kerry book “Tour of Duty” and John O’Neill’s anti-Kerry book “Unfit for Command” — there is another book that would be well worth reading...
Veterans vs. Kerry on Vietnam: Part 1 of 3
Senator John Kerry’s running mate, Senator John Edwards, has said melodramatically: “Ask the men who served with him in Vietnam!” But now that men who served with Kerry in Vietnam are coming forward and contradicting Kerry’s version of what...
Pessimism About the Economy
Democrats and their allies in the media have been giddy the latest jobs report. The New York Times said it showed that July “was a sputtering, tepid month” — a boon to Democrats. John Kerry said Friday’s report showed that instead of...
Letters to the Editor (August 2004)
Clarifying the Meaning of Initiation of Physical Force August 21, 2004 While I agree with the administration’s use of preemptive attacks against the Hussein regime, I note that Dr. Hurd’s endorsement occurs in an article linked to the Capitalism web site...
Hot, Bubbling Oil
Crude is quickly approaching $50 a barrel, leaving no doubt in my mind that oil is in a speculative bubble — very much like what happened to the NASDAQ in 1999 and 2000. Previoiusly I wrote about some of the forces behind the alarming price rise: increasing...
Two Versions of Vietnam
It is a painful reflection on the political atmosphere today that, in an era when nuclear devastation may strike American soil within our lifetime, courtesy of terrorists supplied with nuclear weapons by North Korea or Iran , we are arguing about what did or...
Thoughts on Internment of Japanese Americans During World War II
According to its publisher, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin’s controversial new book In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror in support of the WWII incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent argues...
Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition
“In the United States, there are now more than 318,000 people behind bars for violations of drug prohibition, more than the number of persons incarcerated for all crimes in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined,” writes Jeffrey A....
House of God, House of War
Picture this scenario: a group of heavily armed Roman Catholics, led by a priest, swarms into St. Joseph’s Cathedral in New York. They claim it as a military base. They fire grenades from its windows. They set explosive charges, in order to blow it up and blame...
Socialism is Evil: Part II
Positive reader response to “Socialism Is Evil” was quite surprising.
War on Poverty Revisited
August 20th marks the 40th anniversary of one of the major turning points in American social history. That was the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating his “War on Poverty” program in 1964. Never had there been such a...
Election 2004: Looking Ahead While Living Today
Q: Dr. Hurd, you sometimes imply that it would be worse to vote for John Kerry than for President Bush. But President Bush wants to push his religious agenda on the nation. Isn’t that worse than John Kerry? A: Bush’s religious agenda is bad indeed. I will...
Why Is There No Car Insurance Crisis?
Is there something special about health insurance that makes it crisis-prone? I mean, we never hear about the horrible “house insurance crisis” or the “spiraling cost of auto insurance.” It wouldn’t be too hard to create such a crisis...
United Nations Wages War on Capitalism
As if our nation’s free-market ideal isn’t damaged enough — witness, if you will, the generally lengthy permitting process for businesses and the prevalence of zoning laws, environmental mandates, eminent domain abuses and hefty tax burdens that...
Do We Want Socialized Medicine?
Problems with our health care system are leading some to fall prey to proposals calling for a nationalized single-payer health care system like Canada’s or Britain’s. There are a few things that we might take into consideration before falling for these...
Simple Rules for a Complex Market
Although investing is a subtle and complicated endeavor, everyone can benefit from a simple set of rules and principles. One of my favorite portfolio managers, Thomas K. Brown, chief executive of Second Curve Capital, a New York hedge fund that specializes in...
Random Thoughts for August 2004
Random thoughts on the passing scene: I don’t even like campaign oratory that I agree with. Alaska is much larger than France and Germany — combined. Yet its population is less than one-tenth that of New York City . Keep that in mind the next time you hear...
Election Year 2000: A Million Black Voters Disenfranchised?
Tell me again. Which of the presidential candidates calls himself a “uniter” and not a “divider”? “Don’t tell us that the strongest democracy on earth,” said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in a recent speech for...
Political Power and Knowledge
Despite clever and hard-working political handlers who have done a masterful job of concealing and distracting attention from John Kerry’s voting record in his long Senate career, and the liberal vision behind that record, glimmers of reality still break through...
The Collectivist Convention: The Democrats’ Bait-and-Switch Philosophy
What does America stand for? What are its founding ideas? In this contentious election, each side is trying to convince us that its policies and ideals are the answer to this question. The Democrats have traditionally relied on a simple technique: appeal to the values...
The Real Price of a Free Lunch
Economic ignorance allows us to fall easy prey to political charlatans and demagogues, so how about a little Economics 101? How many times have we heard “free tuition,” “free health care,” and free you-name-it? If a particular good or service...
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