Most Americans think slavery ended with the 13th Amendment in 1865. It did, in the United States. But it is alive and well today in the Sudan and Mauritania. In these African countries, blacks suffer at the hands of Arabs, who ransack villages, kill the men and sell...
POLITICS
Piss off the Terrorists and their Allies: Privatize the World Trade Center
Jack Smith of Monticello, Minnesota, wrote in the following to a Wall Street Journal columnist regarding the site of the World Trade Center, expressing his disagreement with the idea of rebuilding it: This is Gettysburg, the Alamo, the Arizona Memorial. Sorry,...
The Conservative Cult of Human Sacrifice
In a column earlier this month in TownHall by Ross Mackenzie, Mackenzie issues a call for mandatory universal service for America’s youth. “Compulsory universal service–one year with an eight-week military component, men and women, no exceptions...
Random Thoughts for December 2002
Random thoughts on the passing scene: It is a little much when people come to this country preaching hatred against others and demanding tolerance for themselves. Thanksgiving may be our most old-fashioned holiday. Gratitude itself seems out of date at a time when so...
Racism in Congress: The Black Caucus
In expressing “outrage” over Senator Trent Lott’s praise of Strom Thurmond and his segregationist vision, the Congressional Black Caucus was calling the kettle black. Every member of the “Black Caucus” should follow Lott’s lead and...
A No-Account Debate
“Grandma Doesn’t Scare Anymore,” reads the headline of a post-election Wall Street Journal editorial noting the success of candidates who back Social Security reform. Seniors are “willing to listen to politicians who tell them the truth about...
Snow Job in the Iraqi Desert
That’s it. The dog ate Saddam Hussein’s homework. Just as no self-respecting teacher would accept this lamest of excuses, so the U.N. Security Council surely will not accept the pathetic explanations that are being served up by Iraq’s representatives...
Invest in the Market for the Long Run
My favorite curmudgeon, the Scrooge of Stocks, is a former National Geographic photographer named Charles Allmon. He lives in Potomac, manages about $100 million for clients, and is the founder and editor of Growth Stock Outlook, now in its 38th year. When I first met...
Faith is Not Enough
Senator Santorum last Sunday assured us that Senator Lott could not be a racist, as he is a man of deep faith and has had many prayer breakfasts with Senator Santorum. Again and again, we are told that someone who is deeply religious cannot be a bad person, and that a...
PBS, Recruiting for Islam
What would be the best way to convert lots of Americans to Islam? Forget print, go to film. Put together a handsome documentary with an original musical score that presents Islam’s prophet Muhammad in the most glowing manner, indeed, as a model of perfection....
Lott’s Resignation: Now the Real Work Begins
According to the Associated Press, “A beleaguered Trent Lott stepped aside Friday as Senate Republican leader two weeks after igniting a political firestorm with racially charged remarks, and Tennessee’s Bill Frist prepared to inherit the job when the GOP...
Ten Stock-ing Stuffers
In January 1995, I started offering readers a list of 10 stocks to consider for the year ahead, making my selections from the choices of market pros whose opinions I value. In five years of this exercise, my lists returned an annual average of 24 percent, compared...
William F. Buckley is all Liberal Inside
William F. Buckley Jr., in the 12/12/02 “Wall Street Journal” writes: “Conservatives (unlike anarchists, or Objectivists) know that sacrifices are necessary, even as diet is necessary for organic health.” Specifically, he refers to the example...
“Hate Crime” Legislation is an Assault on Free Speech
If images of people being persecuted for “thought crimes” strike you as the stuff of science fiction — or, at worst, something that happened when communism was at its height and jackboots were storming Europe — get ready for a wake-up call. It...
The New Segregation: Racism in America, Then and Now
Trent Lott has changed from a nostalgist for segregation to an open advocate of neo-segregation. Lott’s old doctrine was called “separate but equal,” and kept black people out of white establishments by law, maintaining two separate sets of...
Trent Lott, Race, and Hypocrisy, Part 2
Behind the endless apologies of Senator Trent Lott is the implied threat, expressed obliquely by his ally Senator Mitch McConnell, that Lott might resign from the Senate if stripped of his role as majority leader. This is denied by Senator Lott, but Washington denials...
The Democrats’ Sorry Lot
The Republicans always find a way to do this: just when they have scored a sweeping victory, they find a way to turn it into defeat. And so it was that Trent Lott celebrated his party’s mid-term election win with a bizarre endorsement of Strom Thurmond’s...
Good Riddance, IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti
When Charles Rossotti became commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service five years ago, taxpayers hoped this marked a new beginning. Unlike all the tax lawyers who preceded him, Rossotti came from a business background. Presumably, he understood the need to end some...
Unlimited Liability
Americans believe strongly in the principle that an individual is innocent until proven guilty–and thus consider it a moral outrage to hold someone responsible for an evil he did not commit. In response to reports of a handful of innocent Arab-Americans being...
Trent Lott, Race, and Hypocrisy
Too many people have asked the wrong question about Trent Lott and have come up with the wrong answer. The real question is not so much about Senator Lott’s past statements but about the Republican Party’s future. What will Trent Lott’s continuance...
Destroy the WorldCom Zombie Already
With phony profits now expected to top $9 billion, WorldCom, Inc, the Mississippi-based telecommunications company, has earned the distinction of committing the worst accounting fraud in American history. As a result, investors have marked down WorldCom’s stock...
Thanks a Lott
Of course it was an idiotic thing to say. And of course Senator Lott’s remarks have been taken out of context. Neither of these opposing viewpoints refer to the real issue. The real issue is power. Democrats who now condemn Senator Lott for his apparent racism...
Fatwa: Coming to a Country Near You
“There is no room for play in Islam… It is deadly serious about everything.” So declared Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1980. Nine years later, Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie discovered the grim consequences of free...
Digital Television and Copy Protection: Government Mandated Technology is a Bad Idea
Earlier this year, Silicon Valley was outraged at a proposal to prohibit the sale of almost any technology unless it contains copy protection standards endorsed by the federal government. While that proposal is unlikely to become law, there’s a similar...
Americans with Disabilities Act vs. The Internet
Common sense may seem in short supply in today’s litigation-happy world, but it got a boost recently from — of all places — Florida, where a federal judge tossed out a lawsuit claiming that Southwest Airlines’ Web site violated the Americans...
The Innovator’s Decision
Tom Daschle tried to turn the election into a referendum on the economy, blasting the Bush administration for “the worst performance in terms of real economic growth that we have seen in the last 50 years.” However hyperbolic, he raised a paradox: If the...
Tonya Harding’s Army
Here is an interesting quote by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz, the federal judge overseeing Sun Microsystems’ request for an injunction against Microsoft, “Capitalism is about making money, but it’s also about something else. It’s also...
The Foreign Policy of Doing Business With Criminals
Eight years ago, a particularly stupid U.S. Administration at a particularly stupid juncture in American history offered Communist North Korea a deal: if you don’t develop nuclear weapons, we’ll give you free American oil — at U.S. taxpayer expense....
Mutual Fund Failure
Despite the miserable performance of the stock market in recent years, the number of Americans owning mutual funds continues to rise. At last report, 48 million families owned stock funds. That’s roughly half of all U.S. households – up from only about...
Tax Credits for Health Care Coverage
It appears high on nearly every wish list President Bush has mentioned for the next Congress: health-care legislation. Why? Because lawmakers can’t wait much longer before they do something about the growing number of Americans who lack health insurance. The...
Cramer vs. Cramer: Another Day, Another Fantasy
If you’re a financial media pundit, you live every day with a fundamental challenge with respect to accountability and intellectual honesty. As your forecasts, opinions and views accumulate over the years, how do you reconcile what you are saying today (or...
The Case for Invading Iraq
With each passing day the United States comes ever closer to launching a new war against Iraq. And yet, before it has even begun, thousands of people are already marching in the streets demanding that our government not take any forceful action against Saddam’s...
Subscribe for free.
Latest pro-Capitalism goodness sent weekly to your email box.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.