Here's my question to you: Should we be governed by good ideas? You say, "Williams, what do you mean?" Here's an example: I regularly bike for fun, cardiovascular fitness and, hopefully, for a longer, healthier life. In my opinion, that's a good idea. That being the...
POLITICS
Time To Strengthen The Freedom of Information Act
Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub says the FEC has no interest in regulating political speech on the Internet. She opened a recent hearing by saying no one at the FEC has sought to manipulate it "as a vehicle for shutting down the right of any individual...
The Essential Conflict: Freedom Versus Dictatorship
We have the military power; we have the moral right. The defense of our lives only requires that we properly identify our enemies and eliminate them.
Death to “Diplomacy” with Iran
The widely hailed diplomatic effort led by Britain, France and Germany is touted as a reasonable way to settle the dispute over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program without any losers. By enticing Iran to the negotiating table, we are told, the West can avoid a...
Why Social Security Should Not Be Saved
The new report by the Social Security trustees, claiming that Social Security will go broke in 2041, is bound to fuel the nationwide debate over Social Security. One side, led by President Bush, says the system is in crisis and must be saved via "partial...
Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly
Senators Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rick Santorum, R-Pa., both introduced proposals to increase the minimum wage from its current $5.15 an hour. Sen. Kennedy's proposal would have raised the minimum wage to $7.25 in three steps over 26 months, while Sen. Santorum's...
Random Thoughts March 2005
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Nolan Ryan's baseball career was so long that he struck out seven guys whose fathers he had also struck out. (Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonds, for example.) Why do some people use a fancy mathematical term like "parameters" when all...
President Bush’s Deadly Iranian Concession
In return for Iran's agreement to temporarily cease the work needed to produce a nuclear bomb, President Bush has agreed to allow Iran to buy civilian airplane parts, and to drop opposition to Iran's membership in the World Trade Organization. These concessions are...
Which Privileges for Islam?
Throughout the West, Muslims are making new and assertive demands, and in some cases challenging the very premises of European and North American life. How to respond? Here is a general rule: Offer full rights -- but turn down demands for special privileges. By way of...
Anti-Intellectualism at Harvard
Dr. Larry Summers, Harvard's president, remains under siege for remarks (www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html) made in his Jan. 14 address to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Dr. Summers suggested that there might be three major reasons...
Do-Gooders: Cynicism Exposed
Back in the 1980s a White House staffer told about a revealing incident on Capitol Hill. The staffer was walking down the corridors of one of the buildings on the Hill when a Senator motioned to him to step inside his office. "I'm going to make a speech next week,...
Bush’s Speech on Freedom
This past Tuesday, President Bush gave an important, and generally excellent, speech on our foreign policy re the middle east. He reiterated, and further explained, his Forward Strategy of Freedom.The highlight of the speech was this remarkable passage, strategically...
Social Security Reform: A Cost-Benefit Analysis
In a recent report, humorist Andy Borowitz writes, "in an effort to confuse the insurgents, President Bush said the U.S. will begin airdropping copies of his Social Security plan over Iraq." Social Security is a complicated program, so attempting to reform it can...
The Abu Ali Case and Balancing “Civil” Liberties and Security
For a free people in the age of terrorism, what is the proper balance between civil liberties and national security? This debate wracks every Western country. Looking at America, the "united we stand" solidarity that followed September 11, 2001, lasted just some...
Good Riddance to Dan Rather
Ordinarily, the retirement of a TV newsman would be something to be more or less passed over in silence by friend and foe alike. But the retirement of Dan Rather as anchorman of CBS news has caused so much spin in the media that some of this spin may become...
Debating Social Security
In a romantic mood, I was reading "Anna Karenina" flying down here and stumbled across one of Tolstoy's brilliant insights. At a party at the home of his friend Prince Oblonsky, Konstantin Levin, the philosophical farmer, muses about the futility of dinnertable...
More Social Security Deceit
A fortnight ago, I explained some of the congressional deceit that has become part and parcel of Social Security. One was the 1936 promise of maximum wages subject to Social Security tax of three percent -- $3,000 -- which, controlling for inflation, comes to roughly...
Saudi Venom in U.S. Mosques
Those of us following the development of Islam in America have for years worried about the unhealthy influence of Saudi money and ideas on American Muslims. We watched apprehensively as the Saudi government boasted of funding mosques and research centers; as it...
AARP Invests in Hypocrisy
The President has made fixing Social Security his number-one domestic objective, but the fight won't be easy -- in part because of fierce opposition by the AARP, the seniors' lobby, with 35 million members. The AARP is using an old strategy: trying to scare the wits...
Social Security’s Demographic Tsunami
"Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy. Social Security. It's Time for E*Trade." That's the message on a San Francisco billboard. It's saying that stock trading on the Internet provides a better shot at a secure retirement than depending on the government. House Minority...
Free Broadband From Socialism
Should municipalities be allowed to build and operate broadband networks in competition with private companies? States around the country are considering laws making it difficult for cities to do so. Informed, honest debate over municipal broadband is rare. Advocates...
Are CEOs Overpaid?
In the wake of the Enron and WorldCom corporate scandals, the purveyors of envy have found another opportunity to preach about what they consider the evils of high CEO salaries, retirements and bonuses. After all, according to them, evil must be afoot when a corporate...
President Bush’s Prescription Drug Benefit Program
The prescription drug benefit is a monster that should be killed before it is hatched.
Iraqis Should Look To American Founding Fathers When Writing Their Constitution
On December 15, 1791, 213 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...
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