What is racial profiling, and is it racist? We can think of profiling as using cheap-to-observe characteristics as indicators or proxies for more-costly-to-observe characteristics. A person’s physical characteristics, such as race, sex and height, are cheap to...
POLITICS
Donald Trump and The Apprentice: Concretization of “The American Dream.”
I can now admit it. I was hooked on The Apprentice since the first time I watched, which was on the 5th week of the show (the episode concerning the flea market). I think everyone knows the show’s premise: Donald Trump holds a competition at business tasks among...
Government by Emotion
Q: As you argue, the only proper role of government is to protect our individual rights against fraud and brutality, foreign and domestic. At what point does government intervention “cross the line”? One is not allowed to commit slander (or libel), but...
Thrill of the Hunt
Q: What do you think of hunting and killing animals? And should it be legal? A: Frankly, I find it rather depraved to hunt and kill animals for the sake of sport. Don’t misunderstand. Animals don’t have human rights and human beings have a right to kill...
Prices, Halting Signals and Economic Interventionism
In a constitutional history class that I’m taking I recently heard an interesting idea. The class was studying the way the US Supreme Court changed its stance on economic interventionism during the years of the Great Depression. The case in point was Nebbia v....
Why Are CEOs Paid So Much?
Are America’s CEOs paid more than they deserve? Many people’s answer is a vehement: Yes. That view is reinforced anew every spring, when companies file their financial statements and we learn how much CEOs were paid last year. In 2003 the average pay for...
Give War A Chance: On President Bush’s Televised Statement
There were many good ideas in President Bush’s televised statement (April 13, 2004). He knows the stakes: “Iraq will either be a peaceful, democratic country or it will again be a source of violence, a haven for terror and a threat to America and to the...
Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness: Council on Bioethics Antagonistic to Man’s Well-Being
Few voices offering moral guidance in the rapidly advancing field of biotechnology are as influential as the President’s Council on Bioethics. Professing to uphold man’s well-being, the council on April 1 called for regulating the techniques and research...
Tax Injustice Day: Altruism vs. Americanism
On Tax Day consider some basic facts. The wealthiest 1% of the taxpayers pay 34% of all federal income taxes. The top 50% pay 96% of the total bill. This means that the least wealthy 50% pay almost nothing. In short, the income tax system soaks the rich. In the name...
The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations Comes From Many Directions
Paul Hornung, the Pro Football Hall of Famer, NFL Green Bay Packers’ star and Notre Dame Heisman trophy winner, stood recently before the public relations’ “racial insensitivity” pit that dragged down John Rocker, Jimmy “The Greek”...
The Terrorist’s Secret Weapon: Political Appeasement By the West
Attacks on American and other troops and civilians in Iraq are not based on any illusion that terrorist acts and guerrilla warfare can defeat our military forces there. But the strength of a chain is that of its weakest link — and the weakest link in American...
Before You Donate to Support a College…
In far too many instances, what passes as college life and education today is no less than shameful. Under the name of diversity and political correctness, billions of taxpayer dollars and donor contributions are used to promote what might be charitably called...
Identifying the Source of Terrorism: Connecting the Ideological Dots
In her testimony before the 9/11 commission, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice spoke of our “inability to connect the dots” that lead to 9/11. She blamed “legal and the bureaucratic impediments” that kept “the FBI and the CIA...
What the United Nations Stands For (Hint: It’s Not Freedom and Peace)
Q: Clearly, the new Spanish Government [the Socialists, who oppose the U.S. War Against Terrorism] is saying that they will support whatever the United Nations will support (through the majority of countries of this world). If the coming U.N. resolutions are to...
9/11 Commission’s Titanic Irresponsibility
The so-called “9/11 Commission” is supposedly trying to find out what happened, or failed to happen, that allowed the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 to succeed. But there is a big difference between trying to unearth facts about September 11, 2001...
The Waffling, Wobbling Bushes
Big-spending President Bush is at it again. His latest bright idea is to spend billions of tax dollars on job training programs. Democrats rage because this is their turf. Bush seeks to out-bid them. Lost in all this silliness are the important questions: What...
Jamie Olis’s Tragedy, And Ours
While Washington was preoccupied with the melodrama of Richard Clarke, I was moved by a more obscure event in Houston that could have greater significance. Earlier this month, a 38-year-old Korean immigrant named Jamie Olis, with a wife and a six-month-old daughter,...
Brains and Things
One of my heroes is the late Julian Simon, the University of Maryland economist who challenged the conventional wisdom that the world was getting overpopulated and would soon run out of food and other critical resources. The best evidence of increasing demand and...
Defending Defense: Budgeting for an Unpredictable Future
With President George W. Bush’s $401.7 billion defense budget under consideration, some Members of Congress are entertaining the idea of cutting defense–at least modestly–to help reign in ballooning federal spending. However, cutting defense spending...
“The Passion” of Howard Roark
“The Passion of the Christ,” a movie that highlights Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion, has met with both strong praise and heated criticism. Yet virtually no one has condemned this movie for championing the anti-life ideas fundamental to religion. By...
U.N. Plan for Internet Control Tiptoes Forward
The phantom of government-controlled Internet has raised its menacing head again, this time on the global level. “Even the definition of what we mean by Internet governance is a subject of debate. But the world has a common interest in ensuring the security and...
A Tale of Two Books: One Critical of Clinton and One Critical of Bush
“Counterterrorism czar” Richard Clarke spent nearly 30 years in government service, including eight years in that capacity during the Clinton administration and briefly retained by the current Bush administration. Now comes Clarke’s book,...
American Appeasement in Iraq
As U.S. soldiers respond to attacks in Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq, many commentators warn that a forceful, self-assertive campaign to wipe out the militant resistance would be disastrous. Disaster may indeed be looming–but only because of a lack of...
National Heritage Areas: The War Over Words
Based on the testimony of A. Durand Jones, the Deputy Director for the National Park Service (NPS) at a March 30th congressional hearing on National Heritage Areas, it would appear private property owners should now rest easy if their lands become targeted for a...
Fighting Terrorism and the Case for Pre-emption
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines magician as “one who performs tricks of illusion and sleight of hand” and “one skilled in magic,” a “sorcerer.” That’s an apt description for the parade of Democrats, leftists and...
Jobless Recovery My Foot
The Bureau Labor Statistics released its payroll jobs report for March earlier this month, and the reported growth of 308,000 jobs for the month is a blessed relief in what has been called a “jobless recovery.” But this should really be no surprise. As I...
Counting the Costs of Government Regulation of Land Development
A dispute about how tall the city of San Mateo, California, will allow buildings to be built may seem like a completely local problem that no one outside of San Mateo should care about. But the principle involved touches everyone from coast to coast, on issues having...
Socialist Bush Busted
When George W. Bush further socializes medical care, he not only harms patients; he also harms the case for capitalism.
Fixing the Jury System
Now that the case against Tyco executives has ended in a mistrial, there is much outcry against the juror whose holdout will cause a $12 million trial to have to be done all over again from scratch. Whether that juror was principled or just pig-headed, this trial...
Diverting the Blame for September 11th
The squabbling and finger-pointing surrounding the 9/11 commission only serve to obscure the fundamental lesson of that horrific day. Whatever errors or incompetence on the part of a particular individual or intelligence agency, what made September 11 possible was a...
Senator Kerry’s Problem: The Likability Gap
If Kerry goes down in the fall, trace the blame to . . . Butchy Cataldo. Kerry’s critics point to his shifting stands on NAFTA, the war in Iraq, the No Child Left Behind Act and the Patriot Act. Kerry detractors expect the public to catch on when Kerry — a...
Random Thoughts for March 2004
Random thoughts on the passing scene: The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all...
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