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
Arnold Schwarzenegger has made a big splash in the media by entering the California governor's race. But the real news out of California came a few days before Arnold's political bombshell. The latest census data show -- for the first time -- that more Californians...
Anyone who believes President Bush's Africa initiative, including sending U.S. troops to Liberia, will amount to more than a hill of beans is whistling Dixie. Maybe it's overly pessimistic, but most of Africa is a continent without much hope for its people. Let's look...
Justice Anthony Kennedy won an outburst of applause at a recent meeting of the American Bar Association in San Francisco when he criticized mandatory sentencing laws. "Every day in prison is much longer than any day you've ever spent," Justice Kennedy said. "A country...
As public health officials consider spraying pesticides to control the mosquito-borne West Nile virus, anti-pesticide activists claim that spraying devastates birds and other wildlife. But such claims should be viewed with skepticism. It seems that West Nile virus and...
Israel's recent release of approximately 400 prisoners - including 210 members of known Arab terrorist organizations - is immoral, as those released directly threaten the lives of Israelis. Though the Palestinian Intifada officially ended -- for a brief period at...
For the last year or two, it has been fashionable to ridicule the idea of a "New Economy," which underlay the stock market boom of the late 1990s. However, last week's productivity report shows that the New Economy is alive and kicking. The original notion of a New...
Two questions have been left unanswered following last week's announcement by Homeland Security Department head Tom Ridge that he has temporarily suspended travel programs allowing foreigners to fly into our country without U.S. visas: Why did it take so bloody long?...
Poland, the fifth-largest country in Europe, is not one of the first places most investors look for opportunities. But maybe it should be. I returned full of enthusiasm a few weeks ago from my first trip to Poland in 40 years. Poland's stock market is small -- a...
The US-sponsored "road map" to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not a very challenging document. The text, which is posted at the State Department website, is only 4-1/2 pages long, and most of it is written in reasonably clear English. Anyone willing to...
It is fascinating to watch special interest groups seeking privileges for themselves in the guise of protecting the rights of other people. A recent issue of Editor & Publisher magazine -- the trade journal of newspapers -- argued for allowing the use of cameras in...
Bleeding-heart liberalism for thee, but not for me. That is the expedient philosophy of the wealthy Rockefeller family. Last week, the Rockefeller rule was on full display at a little-noticed hearing in Arlington County, Va. There, Mrs. Sharon Percy Rockefeller...
Americans are increasingly negative about Islam and Muslims - or so found an important survey that the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press published last week. Perhaps the most dramatic change has been the jump in Americans who find that Islam, more than...
In recent weeks, George W. Bush has started to come in for the first meaningful criticism from mainstream conservatives during his presidency. While nascent, it could become the only real barrier to his re-election next year unless dealt with quickly. To be sure,...
The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Grutter vs. Bollinger permits colleges to award a "plus" to black, Hispanic and American Indian student applications for admission. As sure as night follows day, we can expect racial fraud. You can bet the rent money that the...
America may have reached a turning point on July 22, 2003 in the battle to restore and protect civil liberties threatened by the Patriot Act. On that day the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass two amendments that restore the rule of law by denying...
Black leaders in America have an unflinching allegiance to the political left and are part-and-parcel to the Democratic Party. They see no reason to change or reform existing race-based affirmative action programs. They are also out of step with the times. This is the...
Treason, by Ann Coulter, is a book of great value and great danger. For Objectivists, who are immune to its horrendous philosophical claims, its integration of the political events of the last 50 years will be of great value. But the excellence of those very points...
Lord knows where these things come from or how they get started. Another one of those emails is making the rounds -- the kind that everyone seems to get and forward on to everyone they know, so you end up getting a dozen copies of it. So maybe you've already seen this...
The California legislature's "solution" to the state budget crisis reeks with evasiveness and self-contradiction. Pretending that they were not raising taxes, the Assembly in fact raised automobile taxes around $5 billion. Pretending to leave local governments' tax...
Does the assertion that individuals possess inalienable rights square with the belief that a nation should be “under God”?
Some years ago, while walking across the campus of Stanford University, I happened to encounter the late Glen Campbell, then head of the Hoover Institution, where I work. Glen was also a regent of the University of California and the regents had just made some...
Largely unbeknownst to the general public, the bond market has been collapsing in recent weeks. For some odd reason, the liberal media have failed to trumpet this news as proof that President Bush's economics policies have failed. It may be because the reason is...
If you went to public school any time in the last 20 years, you can be forgiven if you think slavery is a uniquely American and Southern experience. That belief, fueled by the political correctness movement, is dead wrong. The evil system we call slavery existed long...
If an incident involves a white cop and a black criminal, you don’t need to know the facts to know how many in the media will react.
Last week, the House voted 324 to 101 to make it easier for Americans to import lower-priced prescription drugs sold in Canada and Europe for their own use. It rejected a more sweeping proposal to allow such imports by drug wholesalers and pharmacies. The fact of the...
The spirit of George Wallace is alive and well -- among left-wing zealots in some of America's most "progressive" taxpayer-funded schools. In Oberlin, Ohio, local school board president Tony Marshall argues that only black high school teachers should teach "black...
The nation's most frenzied electoral battle since the 2000 presidential election -- the effort to recall California Gov. Gray Davis -- offers dramatic evidence that the GOP is intellectually bankrupt. The Republican philosophy was once represented by the late Arizona...
Say what you want about The New York Times, but it still makes more news than any other paper in the United States. By this, I don't mean in the sense of printing the news, as other papers do, but rather in the sense of news about the Times itself. Consider these...
The 900-page Congressional report criticizing the operations of the FBI and CIA in the months prior to the September 11 attacks misses the fundamental point. Whatever incompetence on the intelligence agencies' part, what made September 11 possible was a failure, not...
To invest is to defer. When you buy a company's stock or a government agency's bonds, you decide not to consume your cash today but to entrust it to an institution that, you hope, will produce rewards for you in the future. History shows that, if you make your choices...
You want honesty in government, right? Enough to take 15 minutes out of your busy day to encourage Uncle Sam to jumpstart an obscure but potentially historic project that could shine more light on Washington than ever before? There is no formal name for the project,...
The Bush administration's Faith-based Initiative (S.476) is misguided and will not achieve its stated goal to use private organizations and private charitable programs as a means to cut the federal budget and return "caring" to its proper place in the private sector....
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