Gary Ridgway has pled guilty to the murder of forty-eight women, making him the worst serial killer in American history. His expected punishment? Life in prison without the possibility of parole. What kind of justice is this? What is the point of the State of...
POLITICS
Thomas Sowell’s Christmas Book Recommendations
When the joy of Christmas starts turning to the desperation of trying to find the right gift, that is the time to turn to that old standby — books. You don’t have to know someone’s measurements to buy a book, nor does it have to match their current...
The Right To Have Your Life Supported By Someone Else
Q: I think Every US citizen is entitled to inexpensive and affordable health care, including preventive care. Dental care should be considered preventive care, too. Show me a Republican who cares that my sister lost a tooth because she lost her job. A: First of all,...
Shrillary from Hillary: Mrs. Clinton Accuses Bush of Undoing the New Deal
“There you go again,” said Ronald Reagan, during his 1980 debate against Jimmy Carter. His simple, gentle jab at his opponent for misstating the Reagan record brought down the house. Well, there goes Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., again. She accuses...
The Wright Stuff
One of the greatest inventions of the 20th century — indeed, one of the landmark inventions in the history of the human race — was the work of a couple of young men who had never gone to college and were just a couple of bicycle mechanics in Dayton, Ohio....
Ignorant About the American Constitution?
I’d like to enlist the services of my fellow Americans with a bit of detective work. Let’s start off with hard evidence. The Federalist Papers were a set of documents written by John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison to persuade the 13 states to...
Falling in Love with a Stock
The problem with investing is that, done right, it’s not all that much fun. It requires virtues for which you will probably be rewarded in heaven but that won’t provide you and your friends with much entertainment on earth: equanimity, restraint,...
Digging into Spending
One doesn’t have to dig very deep to find examples where spending far exceeded predictions. I can look across the street, where an underground Capitol visitor’s center is under construction. The project was first floated in the early 1990s, with a $71...
Is Wal-Mart Good for America?
“Is Wal-Mart Good for America?” That is the headline on a New York Times story about the country’s largest retailer. The very idea that third parties should be deciding whether a particular business is good for the whole country shows incredible...
Telling Friend From Foe: Ferreting out Militant Islam
If militant Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution, as I often argue, how does one differentiate between these two forms of Islam? It’s a tough question, especially as concerns Muslims who live in Western countries. To understand just how tough...
PC Ethics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
The following is a letter written in response to some accusations made by an unnamed professor against student Alexander Marriott as detailed in A Victory Against Political Correctness: Rebel Yell Apologizes to Alexander Marriott. Now that I am back on the job I have...
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
On December 15, 1791, 212 years ago, the American Bill of Rights was ratified. Thus ended a long and difficult process by which the American people first liberated themselves from tyranny and then established the first government in history founded on individual...
Repeal the Davis Bacon Act of 1931
There’s a little known law called the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. It remains on the books today. Before saying what the law is and its effects, let me run by you some of the language used, in the early 1930s, to push the law through Congress. Rep. John Cochran of...
Howard Dean’s Anti-American Foreign Policy
Democrat presidential candidate Howard Dean has made a number of statements recently that give one a glimpse into the dark, multilateralist, socialist corners of his mind from his view that Bush May Have Been Tipped to 9/11 Attacks, to his apparent lust for...
Unhappy Birthday and Merry Christmas, Elian
Elian Gonzalez, who floated in Florida’s waters four years ago on Thanksgiving, is ten years old on Saturday. The media spectacle that surrounded his arrival and departure has given way to obscurity; the world has forgotten Elian. Those who ignore Elian’s...
Don’t Throw out the Mutual Fund Market, Because of a Few Bad Apples
Previously, I dared to suggest that maybe the mutual-fund industry isn’t quite the “cesspool” that New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer says it is, and I criticized Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission for panicking investors...
Sacrifice, Price-Controls, and Statism vs. Self-Interest , Profit-Seeking, and Freedom
During the gasoline shortage that began in 1979, motorists were often waiting in long lines of cars at filling stations — sometimes for hours — in hopes of reaching the pump before the gas ran out. The ways that Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan proposed to...
Medicare Expansion Backlash
Republicans think they are so clever, having rammed through a massive expansion of the welfare state by giving drug benefits to the elderly. They co-opted the AARP — long considered to be in the pocket of the Democrats — and left the Democrats with no real...
Government Created Scarcity: California’s “Affordable” Housing Problem
One of the staples of liberal hand-wringing is a need for “affordable housing.” Last year, the standard liberal solution — more government spending — was proposed in a televised speech at the National Press Club in Washington , in a report...
Michael Jackson and the Race Card: “Don’t Leave Home Without It”
The Race Card — “Don’t Leave Home Without It.” Michael Jackson, according to the Santa Barbara district attorney, allegedly molested a 12-year-old boy. But not long after the search of Michael Jackson’s estate, and the issuance of an...
“Preserving Farmland” and the High Cost of Busybodies
A reader wrote recently about his father, who has been a farmer, but is now ready to retire. His father figured on selling his land to get some money for his golden retirement years. But he found that he cannot get anywhere near the land’s market value because...
On Republicans and Democrats
Readers sometimes ask why I occasionally write columns advising Democrats on how they could gain some political advantage by adopting certain policies. After all, as a Republican, don’t I want my party to win? Why am I helping the enemy? The answer is that...
Organ Donations, Egalitarian Envy, and the High Cost of Busybodies
It was gratifying news when fans around the country volunteered to donate their kidneys to basketball star Alonzo Mourning, who would otherwise have to cut short his career because of life-threatening medical problems with his own kidneys. However, the head of the New...
America’s Failing War Effort (Part 12 of 12): Conclusion
Recent criticism of the Bush administration has focused on the limitations of American intelligence in failing to predict September 11th, and the shortcomings current plans for homeland defense. In truth, however, these problems are only superficial. If anything, the...
America’s Failing War Effort (Part 11 of 12): International Law and Diplomacy
We have so far discussed the aims of the war and the weapons used to fight it. Aside from pointing to the proper moral principles that ought to guide the selection of either, we have not said much about the formal process by which foreign policy decisions are to be...
Terrorists vs. America: What America Stands For and Why the Terrorists Hate Us
The fundamental battle we face today consists not of bombs and rockets, but of ideas–the ideas of those who value human life on earth versus the ideas of those who oppose it.
America’s Failing War Effort (Part 10 of 12): Military Deployment and Readiness
It is presumptuous and impossible for civilian laymen to evaluate the intricacies of military policy. These are details best left to experts in military science. But civilians are in a position to evaluate the overall strategies of military policy, insofar as they...
America’s Failing War Effort (Part 9 of 12): Israel and the Palestinians
In the preceding sections, we have evaluated the Bush administration’s approach toward America’s enemies, and the supporters of its enemies. In these categories, we have found that while the United States has taken some extremely limited steps to defend...
The Case for ‘Iraqification’
Stay the course — but change the course. That was the meaning of the sudden, sharp, and understated change in Washington’s Iraq policy earlier this month. After the American civilian administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, made a hurried visit to the...
America’s Failing War Effort (Part 8 of 12): Pakistan
Pakistan’s relationship to terrorism parallels Saudi Arabia’s in virtually every respect. The government of Pakistan has in the past offered substantial indirect support to terrorists, but has now pledged support for the American war against terrorism....
Islam: A Religion of Peace, Part 2
Last week’s column contained excerpts from my interview with Robert Spencer, author of “Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West.” He makes the case that violent Islam stems from a straight reading of Islamic religious...
“Fairness” Fanatics
Many people are incensed that other countries pay less for American medications than Americans pay because that is “unfair.” Of course it is unfair — and all of us like fairness. But there are many other things we also like, and often in life one...
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