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

Are Taxes “the Price We Pay for Civilization”?

I want to challenge the premise that the tax-funded welfare state is the ideal civilized society.

Biotech Comes Down With Enronitis

The biotech sector is sick. The industry that promises to cure cancer and AIDS can’t cure itself. And it’s all so sudden. All last year I thought favorably of biotech as a “defensive growth” sector — a group of high-risk/high-reward...

Who Is the Enemy?

Who Is the Enemy?

With whom, or what, is the United States at war? The answer to this question has far-reaching implications for strategy, for public diplomacy, and for foreign and domestic policy alike. It may seem that the answer is obvious; but it is not. In the first few weeks...

Saudi Arabia: America’s Dysfunctional “Friend”

For Thanksgiving in 1990, former President George H.W. Bush went to Saudi Arabia to visit the 400,000 American soldiers stationed there as part of Operation Desert Shield. The Saudis welcomed Bush, but made it clear that no Christian worship — including grace...

Sobering Up

When the stock market soared in the first two weeks of this new year, it seemed to validate a growing confidence that the economy was destined to overcome the tech-wreck and the recession, just as America had moved beyond the terrorist attacks of September 11....

The Illegal Alien Pander-lympics

There’s a rigged competition going on in politics that you won’t see on television this week. It’s the deceptive speed-spending race to fix our immigration enforcement woes. President Bush proposes boosting the Immigration and Naturalization...

The War on Terrorism and the War on Reality

Here is the painful dilemma America faces: If we don’t attack Iraq, we could risk a nuclear attack on New York or Washington by Iraqi-backed terrorists. But if we do attack Iraq, we could risk “alienating” our Arab and European allies and earning the...

The Education Bill

The Education Bill

The compromise education bill just passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush provided some good political theater and even a little humor, with the president embracing Ted Kennedy. But what did it do for American education? Not much. The new legislation...

Looters In “Public Good” Suits

“They can stoke me with money,” said Senator Ted Kennedy, referring to how the Bush Administration can win his favor. “I’m an easy stoke.” Why can’t we just stoke him? Or, more importantly: stoke his ideas and policies? We should...

Ted Kennedy Wants Your Money

In a demonstration that the more things change, the more they remain the same, Senator Ted Kennedy called last week for expanding the public sector at the expense of the private one. His speech at the National Press Club in Washington drew a lot of media attention...

Dealing with Terrorism

Q: How are people coping with the aftermath of the events of September 11th, so that the psychological impact of the terrorist events does not overwhelm them? A: In many different ways. At first, some found an oddly kind of pleasant escape in focusing on events in the...

Loving Thy Enemy

From a FoxNews.com report: Shackled, blinded and bound, 30 Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees stepped off a U.S. Air Force C-141 cargo plane in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Wednesday after an all-night flight from Afghanistan, halfway around the world. Sixty gun-toting Marines...

Colin Powell “hooks up” with MTV

This month, sandwiched somewhere in between Britney Spears’ videos, Trojan condom ads, booze-drenched Mardi Gras parties, soft-porn soap operas, and reruns of vulgar stunt shows, MTV will broadcast a “global town meeting” featuring Secretary of State...

In Search of DNC Chairman McAuliffe

In Search of DNC Chairman McAuliffe

“Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe wants to appear on your show,” my producer excitedly told me. A staffer of the DNC chairman called — not once, but three times — to arrange the chairman’s appearance on my radio show...

“Multilateralism’s” One-Way Street

A few weeks ago, many liberals were crowing that the War on Terrorism had forced the Bush administration to abandon “isolationism” and embrace “globalism” by seeking out an international coalition. This is part of an effort to make independent,...

The “Rent Control” Housing Farce: Part II

The “Rent Control” Housing Farce: Part II

Too many people who talk about a lack of “affordable housing” seem to think that this is something the government must build or subsidize. It never seems to occur to them that government activity is itself one of the biggest reasons for housing being...

De-mystifying Democracy

The United States should not be fighting for a democratic Afghanistan. In fact, it should not be fighting for democracy at all–not in Afghanistan, not in China, and not even in America. Democracy and dictatorship are not rivals; they are brothers. In...

Campaign Finance Reform: Wrong Target

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz., makes a lot of political hay portraying himself as the hero for campaign finance reform and against influence-peddling. He’s for restrictions on the “soft money” millions that flow into the campaign coffers of the...

The Source of Al Qaeda Terrorism: Saudi Arabia

The newest source of tension in the increasingly strained Saudi-American relationship is the revelation that nearly two-thirds of the 158 Al Qaeda terrorists being held at Guantanamo are citizens of Saudi Arabia. Prince Nayef, the Saudi interior minister, is demanding...

Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain. Sometimes it seems as if love songs are being replaced by sex songs. I am going to stop procrastinating — one...

A Nation of Sheep: “Dependent on D.C.”

“The shift from personal autonomy to dependence on government is perhaps the defining characteristic of modern American politics. In the span of barely one lifetime, a nation grounded in ideals of individual liberty has been transformed into one in which federal...

Bush Should Fire Colin Powell

America’s war policy faces a deadly roadblock. The problem is partly the recalcitrance of our so-called allies, from the quavering Europeans to the increasingly hostile Saudis. Most of our “coalition” wants us to declare victory in Afghanistan and go...

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