Having been forced to recognize that our soldiers won a brilliant military victory in Iraq, media commentators are trying to minimize that achievement by loudly proclaiming how much more difficult it will be to “win the peace” by establishing a stable and...
POLITICS
Affirmative Action Quota “Logic”, Part 1
Old-timers may remember a radio program about a crime-fighting hero called The Shadow, who had “the power to cloud men’s minds, so that they cannot see him.” Affirmative action has that same power today. Some of the murkiest thinking of our times has...
War Crimes Trials
Baghdad has fallen. The war is nearly over now and the time will soon come to assess the actions of Iraq’s former leaders. Coalition forces reportedly carry a “deck of cards” with the pictures of 55 Iraqi leaders of the regime and orders to pursue,...
Government Subsidizing Obesity?
Dr. Robert Atkins died last week of complications from a fall on April 8. Famous for the high protein/low carbohydrate diet that he pioneered, overweight people the world over mourn his death. [1] For many, he was their savior, giving them a workable method for...
Remembering Elian Gonzalez
I met Elian Gonzalez during a visit to the Miami house which had become the flashpoint for a profound philosophical conflict–days before his pre-dawn seizure on Saturday, April 22, 2000. Springing from his uncle’s house with the exuberance of a child...
Cuba’s Cruel Joke
“Can I have your bones?” the old woman asked my eight-year-old daughter, pointing to the gnawed remains of the chicken leg that had been her lunch. Seeing that my daughter was perplexed, the old woman displayed a box of chicken bones that she had collected...
The Ultimate Assault Weapon: California’s Committee on Public Safety
California Democratic Assemblyman Paul Koretz is at it again. A year ago, Koretz tried to cash-in on widespread fears of terrorism by sponsoring a bill to ban .50 caliber rifles in the state. To woo emotive soccer moms, he nonchalantly labeled the rifles “sniper...
Fund-amentals
Mutual funds, which were invented roughly 80 years ago and have boomed in the past decade, are a triumph of financial democracy. They give small investors access to the sort of money managers who once worked exclusively for the wealthy. Funds also offer broad...
Without Selfish Individuals, Nothing
“Deny self and build community”–the mantra of our age. Preachers praise it. Professors teach it. Many feel tingly at the mere thought of it. But a community is not a god; it’s simply a number of individuals. As economist Ludwig von Mises...
Not in My Name, cont’d.
This came in from St. Andrews, Scotland: Dear Right Wing Reactionary, I hope that someday you, or your family, will have the oppurtunity to live in poverty without healthcare, social security or welfare. Then, possibly, you could experience the utter dispare and...
Russia’s Flat-Tax Miracle
It’s never fun to admit failure. But Russia’s 13 percent flat tax forces me to confess a certain degree of incompetence. For 10 years, I’ve been working in Washington to replace our convoluted tax code with a simple and fair flat tax. But as every...
Rules to Live By
Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, now HealthSouth. Will the scandals ever end? Frankly, no. There are more than 6,000 companies listed on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange alone, and a few always will be led by unscrupulous managers who lie, cheat and steal. The U.S. has...
“War’s New Face” Revisited
Daniel Pipes’ recent column identifies changes to the way the West (namely, the USA and Israel) conduct war. He seems to report this factually and there is no explicit opinion on the matter, but the implication is that he doesn’t have a problem with...
Stumbling Over the Truth About Missile Defense
Winston Churchill once said, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” Churchill was not speaking of national security or missile defense, but his words apply nonetheless. The...
Shareholder Values
As the season for annual meetings begins, activists are presenting shareholders with resolutions seeking social change and better corporate governance. A few of the proposals have merit; most are obnoxious but harmless. And nearly all will be rejected – mainly...
First Amendment Bull: Tim Robbins vs. Free Speech
Lately, it seems as if almost every week some leftist celebrity finds the time and energy to publicly demonstrate their gross misunderstanding of a simple two-word phrase: “free speech.” Although few people expect them to be literate enough to read the...
Martin Sheen: Victim of Hollywood Status
A sensitivity guidebook, used by schools nationwide, urges teachers to diligently watch for “differential treatment of an individual due to minority status; actual and perceived” in the classroom–that’s differential, not deferential. The...
Conservatives for the Separation of God and Religion
The House of Representatives passed a resolution last month recognizing “the public need for fasting and prayer in order to secure the blessings and protection of Providence for the people of the United States and our armed forces.” On Bill...
Human Lifestock and The Welfare State
An old television special featured great boxing matches of the past, including a video of a match between legendary light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore and a young Canadian fighter named Yvonne Durrell, in which each man was knocked down four times during the...
Not in My Name: My Version of a “Statement of Conscience”
Thousands of Americans chose not to pay their federal income tax this year as a political statement, many because they don’t want their money supporting the U.S. military. [Associated Press, 4/16/03] I would gladly concede to war protesters the right to withhold...
Fleeing Castro’s Communist Paradise to Get to Evil Capitalist America
Just last week three of the men involved in hijacking a Cuban ferry in order to flee to America were executed under the regime of Fidel Castro under the charge of terrorism. Where was the United States in all of this? Unfortunately while freeing a people and riding...
Call It Like It Is
There’s considerable unnecessary confusion and debate on public policy issues that would be more intelligently discussed and resolved if we’d say what is actually meant rather than using euphemistic disguises. The Grutter and Gratz vs. Bollinger cases...
A High-Tech Agenda for AIDS
The entire op-ed page of the New York Times on March 1 was consumed by six pieces under the general heading, “The New AIDS Fight.” So far, so good. But take a look
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is But One Example of the Petty, Partisan Press
Perhaps nothing so epitomized what is wrong with the media as Wolf Blitzer of CNN “reporting” on the war in Iraq, talking not about what had happened but about something that had not happened. No one had yet found weapons of mass destruction, he said, even...
Japan’s Crippled Banking System
Back in the 1980s, a lot of best-selling books were written about how the United States should emulate Japan. Pursuing free market economics based on individual entrepreneurs was passe, so it was often said by Ronald Reagan’s critics. Instead, we should follow...
The Ideological Reconstruction of Iraq
Estimated to cost as much as $200 billion, the plan for rebuilding post-war Iraq is astounding in its scope–from repairing roads and sewer systems to revamping the Iraqi government payroll system and printing school textbooks. Yet no one is paying attention to...
Can Individual Investors Beat the Market?
Among financial scholars, it’s an article of faith that the vast majority of investors can’t beat the stock market regularly. According to the traditional academic literature, if you invest long enough, spread your money around in a diversified portfolio,...
Capitalism Triumphs at Augusta
Mike Weir became the first Canadian, and first left-hander, to win the Masters. Weir triumphed in a one-hole playoff with American journeyman Len Mattiace after both players finished the tournament 7-under-par. Although the playoff was somewhat anticlimactic–a...
Bad Cuban Medicine
The shelves in the neighbourhood pharmacy, like those in the other neighbourhood pharmacies I had seen in Havana, were half empty and full of dust, the small selection of medicines on display arranged in lonely rows of old-fashioned little bottles. Customers were as...
Iraq is Better off without the International Monetary Fund
Leaders of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund met in Washington over the weekend for their annual spring meeting. They were under great pressure from the United States to step in to Iraq and help get that country’s economy back on its feet. However,...
Victory Not Enough: We Need Tax Cuts Now!
Three months ago, President Bush proposed reviving the economy with a package that would cut the tax bills of 92 million Americans. The president has had other things on his mind since then, and the opposition of only a few Senators pared the package back in the...
Nine Simple Guidelines for Pro-Growth Tax Policy
Economic growth occurs when people work more, save more, and invest more. These are the behaviors that increase national income and boost the nation’s wealth. People do not produce more simply because the government has a balanced budget. Nor do they increase...
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