In last week’s U.S. Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision, Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissent included a quotation from an 1865 speech by abolitionist Frederick Douglass. “What I ask for the Negro,” Douglass said, “is not...
POLITICS
Sabine Herold: Saving France From Itself
In the 15th century, a young woman named Joan rallied the people of France to revolt against their English oppressors. Today, another young woman, named Sabine Herold, is trying to do the same thing. Only she is not trying to save France from foreign invaders but from...
The Fourth of July
Why do we celebrate the Fourth of July? After all, we are taught from kindergarten to the universities that all cultures are entitled to equal respect. Why then celebrate the creation of a nation that is no better than any other nation? Indeed, if you heard only the...
In Praise of Another Tax Cut
Early on in the 2000 presidential race, President Bush unveiled his plan for a $1.6 trillion tax cut. Back then, the justification was that the economy was in great shape, and the designated beneficiaries were, as Bush put it, “those who paid the bill,”...
Death to Dictators in Iran
“Happy colors became sinful, joy became a crime, and death was worshipped.” That’s how Reza Mahmoodshahi, writing last December in The Cornell Review, describes what happened in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile and assumed his post as...
Revisiting the Efficient Market Hypothesis
Over the past few months, the stock market has put on one of those frequent demonstrations that show exactly why smart investors buy stocks and hold on to them — or, better yet, why they consistently buy more. The economic news has not been good, with...
Reducto Ad Totalitarianism
Imagine a society in which an unelected, few people, qualified for power only by their mastery of esoteric terminology and incantations, are able to dictate our everyday lives in the most minute detail–growing rich in the process by siphoning off unearned...
A Leap Toward Socialized Medicine — By One Vote
Last Thursday night, Congress approved President Bush’s expansion of Medicare by one vote. Once Bush signs the bill, every American over age 65 will lose the freedom to choose, pay for and control drug treatments. The proposal, set to start in three years, is a...
Defining Market Share: A Glimpse at Reality
According to The Times of London, the city of Munich has replaced Microsoft Windows with a Linux operating system in 14,000 of its computers. This provided a glimpse of economic reality, completely contrary to the premise on which Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson...
Cancer Cluster Bluster
Exploiting junk science is great for re-election campaign coffers. Thus, one of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s first major crusades after she took office was to whip up public health hysteria on Long Island, where some activists have blamed slightly elevated breast...
Government’s Long-Term Fiscal Imbalance
One of the hottest documents circulating around Washington today is a highly technical, statistics-laden, 131-page paper by Hoover Institution economist Michael Boskin. First reported by Jim McTague in Barron’s on June 16, it estimates that the taxation of...
ImClone’s Sam Waksal Should Have Read Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’
If Sam Waksal had read Atlas Shrugged , he may have walked free. In a memorable scene in Atlas Shrugged, Hank Rearden, a self-made steel magnate, sat, like Waksal, in a courtroom, on trial. Rearden, like Waksal, had violated the law. Rearden’s crime had been to...
Saving Racism in our Universities
There was some talk recently about upcoming vacancies on the Supreme Court because some retirements were expected. However, the High Court’s decision on affirmative action suggests that there are already vacancies, even though no one has resigned. We can only...
Airline Deregulation Revisited
Ever wondered how the whole airline fare system works? Why is it, for example, that the guy you sat next to on that flight to Schenectady got a fare that was half of what you paid? Why is it that fares booked a month out are cheaper than fares booked two weeks out,...
The Democrat’s Barry Goldwater
One of the problems with polling is that people are often given open-ended alternatives to specific people and issues. For example, a political candidate may poll poorly when an opponent is unspecified, because people in effect insert their ideal candidate as the...
Cutting Interest Rates
On June 24, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee meets to set monetary policy. The conventional wisdom — which is almost always accurate in this area — is that the FOMC will cut the federal funds interest rate by at least 25 basis...
Eliot Spitzer Should Investigate Paul Krugman
I have an idea for Eliot Spitzer. As you know, the New York state attorney general has been crusading against stock research tainted by investment-banking relationships. He has fined Wall Street billions and ruined the careers of superstar analysts. So why...
Patriotic Books for Children
Giving kids a better grasp of what America means usually begins with a good book. The combination of appealing pictures and exciting ideas may spark a young person’s interest to learn more about a topic. Several classic children’s books offer reasons to...
In Defense of Property Rights: The Challenge to Zoning Advocates (Part 6 of 6)
Zoning proponents have presented zoning as the solution to many of the “problems” confronting Houston. At a time when the nation, and indeed much of the world, is rejecting government programs as the solution, zoning advocates endorse a massive government...
In Defense of Property Rights: The Freedom to Choose (Part 5 of 6)
In contrast to the advocates of zoning, who hold that society may force its values upon individuals, we repudiate the initiation of force in human affairs. We assert that each individual is a sovereign entity, that each individual has a moral right to pursue his...
Eco-nomics: What Everyone Should Know About Economics and the Environment
Disagreement with the world’s environmentalist wackos doesn’t mean that one is for dirty air and water, against conservation and for species extinction. Dr. Richard Stroup, Montana State University professor of economics and senior associate of the Center...
In Defense of Property Rights: The Effects of Zoning (Part 4 of 6)
In the months since the November 1993 zoning referendum, zoning advocates have launched a number of accusations against their opponents. Zoning opponents, pro-zoners said, were dishonest and unprincipled. They resorted to lies, misrepresentations and scare tactics to...
Drugs and Politics: Prescription Drug Benefits for the Elderly
In the midst of a bipartisan stampede toward “prescription drug benefits for the elderly,” someone needs to ask the question: Why should seniors be singled out to be subsidized by the taxpayers, except that their votes are being sought by both parties? We...
In Defense of Property Rights: The Nature of Zoning (Part 3 of 6)
The purpose of zoning, and its sole reason for existing, is to give government control over the use of all land within the community. While the rightful owner remains responsible for that property, the government will determine how that property is used. Under zoning,...
Investing in Technology Services
Our story thus far. . . . After rising from 777 in the summer of 1982 to more than 11,000 in the spring of 2000, the Dow Jones industrial average declined for three years in a row, descending to 7524 on March 11, just before the start of the Iraq war. Then stocks...
In Defense of Property Rights: Attacks on Property Rights (Part 2 of 6)
In 1980 City Council passed an ordinance which, among other things, limited the size and location of outdoor signs and billboards. Advocates of the ordinance referred to Houston’s abundant sign population as “visual pollution” 1 and “a...
The Legacy of Eric Hoffer
The twentieth anniversary of the death of Eric Hoffer, in May 1983, passed with very little notice of one of the most incisive thinkers of his time — a man whose writings continue to have great relevance to our times. How many people today even know of this...
How the Democrats Lost Power
Having grown up in an era when Republicans were seemingly condemned to permanent minority status in Congress, I have some sympathy for Democrats, who appear to be in a similar predicament today. There were a number of factors that cemented the Democratic majority from...
In Defense of Property Rights: The Right to Property (Part 1 of 6)
Over the past fifteen years, Houstonians have witnessed nearly constant attempts to place controls on the use of private property. These efforts have taken many forms — restrictions on billboards, prohibitions on indoor smoking, the landscaping ordinance, and...
Bush’s Medicare Plan is Hillary Clinton’s Triumph
This week, at President Bush’s urging, the GOP-controlled Congress is likely to approve a bill that severely restricts seniors’ freedom of choice in health care. When Congress passes the Medicare bill — which Bush has promised to sign — every...
The Virtues of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter
Americans have had the book’s release date marked on their calendars for months. It’s Amazon’s top seller. When it’s finally available, many of us will rush to stores to purchase a copy, then fight over who gets to read it first … with...
Physicians are Not Criminals; But Businessmen
The following is an excerpt of an address given by CAC Chairman Nicholas Provenzo to the doctors of the Colorado Medical Society on May 04, 2003. Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Morning. I thank you for your kind attention this morning and I thank the staff and directors...
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