This September 8 marks the 500th anniversary of Michelangelo's "David," one of art-history's greatest masterpieces. Crowds of visitors have been drawn to Florence to experience this magnificent sculpture over the past 500 years--and they continue to visit in record...
POLITICS
The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded, and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of “conservatism” and “liberalism” which had lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men. – AYN RAND
The Department of Peace
The ability of some in Congress to completely trash our U.S. Constitution is simply breathtaking. Witness H.R. 1673, a bill introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) a year ago but roused from its subcommittee slumber just this March, with the addition of Rep. Linda...
The Progress of American Blacks
Illinois Republican candidate Alan Keyes recently proposed exempting blacks -- for a generation or two -- from paying federal income taxes! Slavery, argues Keyes, "was an egregious failure on the part of the federal establishment." Who argues with that? But despite...
American Unemployment and Elections
Concluding a sensational convention in New York with a speech that emphasized unflinching strength, President Bush got more good news this morning. The Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate had dropped to 5.4 percent -- the lowest proportion of...
The First Amendment “Loophole” and The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
In May of this year, a group of American citizens united to form a small organization dedicated to spreading the shared opinion of its members. To that end, they have run television advertisements and held press conferences criticizing the military service record of...
John Kerry vs. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
"During the Vietnam War," said former President Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention, "many young men -- including the current president, the vice president and me -- could have gone to Vietnam but didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background and...
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 thousands of...
Market Myth: Worst Economy Since The Great Depression?
To hear John Kerry tell it, America is mired today in the worst economy since the Great Depression. How dumb does he think voters are? We just set a record for yearly production: a GDP of nearly $12 trillion, or $120,000 per family. As for what really counts, personal...
The American Dream
Thank you. What a greeting! This is like winning an Oscar! ...As if I would know! Speaking of acting, one of my movies was called "True Lies." It's what the Democrats should have called their convention. My fellow Americans, this is an amazing moment for me. To think...
The Power of the Rich
The truly rich don't deserve all the political hype we hear; they're only a tiny percentage of our population and not that important. According to recent U.S. Treasury statistics, the top 1 percent of income earners have an adjusted gross income that starts around...
The Culture: Productivity and Sacrifice
A businessman is a creator. They take the abstract theories of scientists and engineers and turn them into practical reality. They marshal the material, money and productive talent necessary to create a bounty unknown to any other period of history. Prior to the era...
The Moral Use of Force Against Dictators Like Saddam Hussein
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 of...
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 vice...
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 Director Klaus Toepfer...
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 military...
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." That's the...
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 "sensitive" war? From the...
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 totalitarian...
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 -- if you can find a copy. It is John Kerry's own book,...
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 happened there, Senator...
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 "turning the corner," as...
Letters to the Editor (August 2004)
Clarifying the Meaning of Initiation of Physical ForceAugust 21, 2004While 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 in which it is...
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 global...
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 didn't...
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 that...
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. Miron,...
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 the...
Socialism is Evil: Part II
Positive reader response to “Socialism Is Evil” was quite surprising.
Subscribe for free.
Latest pro-Capitalism goodness sent weekly to your email box.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.