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 United States with...
POLITICS
The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded, and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of “conservatism” and “liberalism” which had lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men. – AYN RAND
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 the other...
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 challenge. What...
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 environment." The...
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 attack--yes, total; we could...
The Republicans Inconsistency
New Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist wants to promote Medical Savings Accounts as health care reform. Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) allow individuals to set aside money tax-free and roll it over every year to pay everyday medical expenses. The accounts are then...
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...
New Senate Leader Must ‘Do No Harm’
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is well known for being the Senate's only doctor. A heart surgeon by training, Sen. Frist has occasionally made the news for coming to the rescue during his tenure in office, including an incident this weekend, where he...
Goodbye to Frank Gehry’s Bad Joke
After Sept. 11, a few intellectuals optimistically predicted the "end of irony" -- that is, the end of the pseudo-intellectual pose of cynicism and skepticism endemic in our turn-of-the-century culture. The end of irony is not quite upon us, but at least one recent...
The NFL’s Race Problem
On Saturday, the New York Jets and Indianapolis Colts will face off in the opening round of the 2003 NFL playoffs. The coaches of the two teams, the Colts' Tony Dungy and New York's Herman Edwards, will have a reunion of sorts, since both men worked in Tampa Bay,...
Time to Privatize the Buses
New York City's recent brush with a transit strike should be a wake-up call for city and state leaders. It's time to inject private competition into Gotham's public transportation system to control costs and make the city less vulnerable to threats every few years...
Hillary Clinton’s Intellectual Bankruptcy
After learning that the Republicans were dumping Trent Lott as Majority Leader in the Senate, Hillary Clinton commented, "What [Lott] did was state publicly what many of them [i.e. Republicans] have stated privately over many years in the back roads and back streets...
Achievement
"I do my work". He who in faith can say That simple phrase, is set upon the way To bend the will of Fortune to his will. The world makes place for him whose strength and skill Rebel at doubt and rankle at delay. The visions that hold true, the dreams that stay Are...
It’s My Life! A Doctor Has a Right to His Own Life
When I came to the United States from South Africa as a young doctor 17 years ago, I was excited. I was leaving behind an oppressive, racist regime, and I was entering a country founded on the inviolable rights of an individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of...
Success
If you want a thing bad enough To go out and fight for it, Work day and night for it, Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it If only desire of it Makes you quite mad enough Never to tire of it, Makes you hold all other things tawdry and cheap for it If...
Death Penalty by the Numbers
This month the Justice Department released "Capital Punishment 2001," its latest annual survey of death penalty statistics. A prowl through the data prompts a few reflections on the capital punishment debate. 1. It is striking that a controversy so large revolves...
What Riyadh Buys in Washington
Previously, I contrasted two official U.S. responses to news that the Saudi ambassador's wife possibly funded the 9/11 hijackers: The Bush administration pooh-poohed it, while leading U.S. senators expressed outrage. I argued that this difference results from a...
World on Fire: Dangerous Democracy?
One of the cornerstones of the war on terrorism is the premise that promoting democracy is a long-run goal for creating a better world, one which will not breed so many terrorists. But a new book, "World on Fire" by Professor Amy Chua of the Yale law school, argues...
Growth, Yes. Stimulus Package, no.
Now that President Bush has named his new economic team, he's expected to turn his attention to a stimulus package. I hope not. Growth, yes. Stimulus, no. "Stimulus" implies a goose to the economy - or, more politely, the quick boost you get when you jump-start a dead...
Time’s “Person” of the Year: American Values, or Media Values?
I remember as a child eagerly awaiting Time magazine's choice of its Man of the Year each year. I believed that there were great men and great events in the world that I needed to know about, and that there was a great arbiter of them -- Time -- that somehow make the...
The UN Human Rights Agenda: A Strategy of Diversion
[Originally this article was supposed to be published in The New York Times. Read what the author went through once the Times "accepted" it.--CM]Every year over 100,000 people write letters about human rights violations which begin "Dear Mr. UN Secretary General" and...
The New York Times: “All the News that’s Fit to Print”–Not
Ever wondered what goes on inside the editorial department of the New York Times? Here is what professor Anne Bayefsky faced when the New York Times accepted her piece "The UN Human Rights Agenda: A Strategy of Diversion."--CMAuthor's Note: ["The UN Human Rights...
NY Times Snow Job on Recently Nominated Treasury Secretary
Newspapers are supposed to report the news -- facts -- so that people can use those facts when they form their opinions. But where do newspapers get facts? How do reporters know that what they are reporting is true? How do readers know? These questions are most...
NY Times Snow Job on Recently Nominated Treasury Secretary
Newspapers are supposed to report the news -- facts -- so that people can use those facts when they form their opinions. But where do newspapers get facts? How do reporters know that what they are reporting is true? How do readers know? These questions are most...
Peace on Earth — and Its Price
This year, more than most, many people are choosing to spend their Christmas by searching for a haven of peace and tranquility in their homes and families. But we have not been able to do so without a few reminders of the value and the cost of that peace. I have been...
Tis the Season…to Understand Individual Rights
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...
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 except for physical...
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 resign from Congress for helping to...
Subscribe for free.
Latest pro-Capitalism goodness sent weekly to your email box.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.