President Bush faces an ideal opportunity to take a principled position on the issue of racial “diversity.” As his administration ponders whether to support the legal challenge, now before the Supreme Court, to the University of Michigan’s...
POLITICS
George W. Bush Hugged the Third Rail
The shake-up of the Bush economic team has been the occasion for a lot of criticism of the administration’s domestic leadership. Indeed, I’ve been one of the harshest critics. Yet I think the Bush administration has done one thing very, very right when it...
Atlas Shrugs in Venezuela
A recent news article described the nationwide strike in Venezuela, in protest against the nascent dictatorship of Hugo Chavez, as seeming “like something from fiction.” Well, yes, it seems very similar to one work of fiction in particular: Ayn...
Forced Volunteerism is an Oxymoron
Last month the Palm Beach County School Board was once again considering mandatory volunteerism as a requirement for graduation from high school. Does no one on the Board understand that forced volunteerism is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms? Does no one on the...
To End the [Palestinian] Violence
The Palestinian campaign of terrorism rolls on, with 22 people murdered in Tel Aviv earlier this month. And even without counting minor incidents involving rocks and firebombs, the Palestinians average more than 10 attacks on Israelis every day. Which makes this a...
The Hate America Reflex
It wouldn’t be a war without a barrage of stones coming at America from the Left. In the December 2002 issue of Z Magazine, self-described as a place where “The Spirit of Resistance Lives,” i.e., chiefly a resistance to capitalism, patriotism and...
Standing Up to Racism
The Bush administration is currently debating whether to file briefs in a pair of affirmative action cases now before the Supreme Court. The cases, arising from admissions policies at the University of Michigan, involve that school’s explicit use of race in...
Economics vs. Politics
The familiar chorus of “tax cuts for the rich” has begun to ring out across the political landscape, in the wake of President Bush’s proposals to boost the economy. The time is long overdue to expose some of the fallacies folded up inside that...
Is John Galt Venezuelan?
On January 1 Venezuela entered into its second month of a national work stoppage. Close to 90 percent of the working population refuses to participate as producers in an economy that supports the regime of Lieutenant Col. Hugo Chavez. In a disorganized and chaotic...
North Korea Must Dismantle Its Nuclear Facilities
On the contrary, North Korea demonstrates the value of preemption–it demonstrates why other hostile regimes must be preempted before they acquire the capability to deter the United States.
Equal Time at the New York Times
The New York Times reveals its deep anti-capitalism bias even when it purports to offer a little op-ed space to dissenting views. After a week of relentlessly demagoguing the Bush administrations tax plan as a subsidy to “the rich” — both in...
Grotesque Cynicism on the Draft
Charles Rangel, a Congressman strongly opposed to the war against Iraq, is introducing legislation to bring back the draft. How can this be? Ultraliberal congressmen like Rangel quite openly loathe the military, just like our former President Clinton once admitted....
The Future of the US-South Korean Alliance
The time has come to ask the question, does America’s troop commitment to South Korea make the United States more secure today or less secure? Do our ground forces with South Korea help us to defend our interests, or do they hamper our ability to pursue our...
A Veteran Comments on Re-instating the Military Draft
There can never be a national emergency that legitimizes the violation of individual rights.
Investing Advice for 2003
A year ago I told investors to sell technology stocks and reinvest in long-term Treasury bonds. That bet turned out very well on both sides: The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index is down more than 30% in 2002 while the total return for 10-year Treasurys has been about 18%...
Zoning and the The “New” Property Rights
Last Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in the case of George Washington University v. District of Columbia, upholding the District’s zoning restrictions on GW’s land use. The case was by no means a landmark...
Markets, the Dollar, and the “War on Terrorism”
Investors should expect continued weakness in the dollar over the coming months and year, by 8-12% against most major currencies. Dollar weakness this year already has exerted a bearish influence on U.S. stocks and will continue to do so with a lag. If, as we expect,...
“Affirmative Action” Quotas on Trial, Part II
When the case for affirmative action in college and university admissions is argued before the Supreme Court this year, the justices are likely to hear many theories, many assertions — and little evidence. People who are for or against affirmative action are...
Pulling Racism Out of a Helmet in the National Football League
When the regular season of the National Football League concludes and coaches are fired and replaced, an annual tribalist ritual accompanies these activities. It involves advocates of “diversity” crying that there are too few black head coaches, and that...
“Affirmative Action” Quotas on Trial
Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to rule on affirmative action in college and university admissions, will this issue be settled at long last or will the justices come up with some murky compromise, like the Bakke decision of 25 years ago, which has led to a...
Human Cloning: Raelians vs. Reality
Congress is currently working up a list of dreadful penalties for anyone who even attempts human cloning, bandying about threats of 10-year prison terms and ruinous fines. The message to scientists is simple: create new life and you forfeit your own. Facing such...
Arafat the Magnanimous
In light of the most recent twin acts of barbarism deliberately directed against Israeli innocents (twenty-two dead, scores injured–many missing body parts–so far) and proudly claimed by Arafat’s own Fatah al- Aqsa affiliate, it’s time to take...
Politically Correct Tax Talk
There’s a big tax debate coming, with President Bush scheduled to announce a package of new tax cuts today. And it looks like we’re not going to be able to talk about it without falling into the morass of politically correct speech. I’m not talking...
The Swedish Invasion: Does a Mixed Economy Lead to Domestic Bliss
“We want to produce the soundtrack to the ongoing war against capitalism.” That’s the creed of Sweden’s new garage band The (International) Noise Conspiracy. They’re avowed socialists, to the point of caricature. A comically...
What Does the Arabic Word “Jihad” Mean?
What does the Arabic word “jihad” mean? One answer came last month, when Saddam Hussein had his Islamic leaders appeal to Muslims worldwide to join his jihad to defeat the “wicked Americans” should they attack Iraq; then he himself threatened...
The “Roadmap to Peace” in the Middle East
With whom are the Israelis supposed to make peace? The proposed “roadmap to peace” in the Middle East has an intrinsic unknown. Peace must involve at least two parties. On one side we have the Israelis who are genuinely interested in peace, but who is on...
Dangers Ahead–From the Right
This year may be long remembered as the year when either the wisdom or the lack of wisdom of our leaders decided the fate of Americans yet unborn. The undeclared war against this country by nations harboring and fostering terrorists sworn to our destruction became...
Dangers Ahead–From the Left
This is almost certain to be a historic year — whether because we begin to break the back of international terrorism, beginning with Iraq, or because international terrorism begins scoring major victories, beginning with North Korea’s brazen nuclear...
Republic? Democracy? What’s the Difference?
In the long run though, a democracy will always become a tyranny, either by majority, or if the majority screw things up so badly and a tyrant seizes power from the ensuing chaos. The overriding characteristic of democracy is subjectivism and that is its fatal flaw.
The Balkanization of College Campuses
The New York Civil Rights Commission (NYCRC) has put out a report that documents how “little attention has been given to the color-conscious policies of the colleges and universities that permit or encourage, and, oftentimes, fund a balkanized campus...
Missile Defense: Self Interest vs. Diplomacy
President Bush calls it a “modest” first step. True–but it’s one that promises to make Americans much safer in the long run. Specifically, the president’s decision to deploy a missile defense means that our total vulnerability to missile...
The Pretense Behind State Universities: Research over Education
Some state universities are having smaller and smaller proportions of their costs paid for by the states, and some people are talking about the possibility of their ceasing to be state universities at all. The University of Texas at Austin, for example, gets more...
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