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.

The Free-Market’s Solution to Media Bias: FOXNews

Major media people have values unlike most other Americans. Former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg documents that in his best-seller, “ Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News .” Eighty-nine percent of Washington journalists voted for...

History Itself Is About to Become History

History is, generally, a subject that studies what happened in the past and determines why it happened. When historians begin to say that nobody can be certain of anything that happened and that anyone’s guess as to why it happened is as good–meaning as...

The Myth of the Arab Country of Palestine

A common misconception about Arab terrorism against Israel is that it is committed in an effort to derail the “peace process.” President Bush echoed that fiction on Sunday when he commented on a wave of ghastly attacks that had just killed 26 Israeli...

“We’re Going to Conquer America”

‘Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country,” said President Bush shortly after Sept. 11, noting that they are “doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads.” He later...

Why Christmas Should be More Commercial

Christmas in America is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. Yet all of these are castigated as “materialistic”; the real meaning of the holiday, we are told, is assorted Nativity tales and altruist...

N.Y. Port Authority’s Forgotten Heroes

“Billy Blazes,” a New York firefighter action figure, is one of the biggest-selling items on the Christmas toy market this year. Also high on the holiday gift list: “FDNY” and “NYPD” caps, shirts and sweaters. The two city...

Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams: Grace Under Fire

Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams: Grace Under Fire

Someday, many of their critics will apologize. Who am I talking about? Two economists, who happen to be black, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. For over 30 years, Thomas Sowell, currently with the Hoover Institution, and Walter Williams, chairman of the economics...

How John Walker Turned into a Taliban Terrorist

It isn’t the case that the parents of John Walker — the Marin County child of privilege turned Taliban terrorist — never drew the line with their son. True, they didn’t do so when he was 14 and his consuming passion was collecting hip-hop CDs...

Value Judgments, Ideology, and Writing Editorials

There’s an interesting methodological difference between Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) op-eds and the usual ones you read by non-Objectivists (and boy, there sure are a lot of non-Objectivists around, aren’t there?). I can best illustrate the difference by a...

Rocky Mountain Bigot?

Rocky Mountain Bigot?

NBA Denver Nuggets coach Dan Issel, after another tough loss at the buzzer, walked off the court toward the locker room. A fan, however, taunted the white coach, calling out, “Issel sucks.” Issel angrily fired back, “Hey, go buy another beer. Go...

Yassar Arafat’s Suicide Factory

In declaring his own war on terrorism last week, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a surprising claim. He said that Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, “is responsible for everything that is happening here,” a reference to the onslaught of...

University Professors vs. America

Many simply shake their heads in confusion and disbelief at reports of peace rallies on college campuses from coast to coast. At such an unprecedented time of pro-American sentiments, and in light of the magnitude of horror of September 11, it seems almost impossible...

Health Care is a Privilege, Not an Entitlement for All

I must say that one of the best things about the Clinton presidency was that he was not able to pass his health care plan. The proposed system was nothing more than a step toward complete socialization of health care in this country, and it overlooked one simple fact:...

Two Kinds of Tax Cuts

[http://www.CapitalismMagazine.com] Politicians are considering tax relief to help a sputtering economy, but not all tax cuts are created equal. There is a vast difference between “supply-side” tax cuts and “Keynesian” tax cuts. Supply-side tax...

Interview: The Well Trained Mind and Homeschooling

Interview: The Well Trained Mind and Homeschooling

When her daughter Susan started kindergarten in Virginia in 1972, Jessie Wise quickly heard complaints from Susan’s teacher that the child would become a social misfit because she wanted to read during free time instead of playing. This was not good news for...

Education Fraud in Philadelphia

Education in Philadelphia’s public schools is so rotten that the state government is threatening a takeover. There are 176 out of 264 schools on the failing list. The primary victims of Philadelphia’s public schools are black students whose chances for...

Media Fraud

Media Fraud

Media bias is no longer news. Poll after poll has shown that the vast majority of journalists vote for Democrats, even though the country as a whole is pretty evenly split between the two major parties. By itself, there is nothing wrong with this. It becomes a problem...

Therapeutic Cloning is Pro-Life

Therapeutic Cloning is Pro-Life

On November 25 Advanced Cell Technologies announced the creation of the first cloned human embryo. The company described its achievement as a crucial step in therapeutic cloning research, which aims at cloning new organs to replace damaged ones. Like healthy new skin...

Stupid Accounting Tricks: Pro Forma Accounting, Part 3

Well, I just can’t seem to get away from this subject. You all keep writing, and in doing so, engender material for follow up columns. Hopefully, this will be the last for a while, but a couple of letters bought up important points that I wanted to address...

Israel May Be Winning

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell recently observed that the Palestinians “need to understand that [terrorism] leads nowhere,” and on this basis he urged them to stop their violence against Israelis. Good policy advice, but does the Palestinian use of...

Deflation: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

This commentary continues a series intended to address some of the misconceptions in the flurry of recent media reports about deflation. My last commentary (“Deflation: The Basics”) began by defining deflation as strictly a monetary process, and one that...

A Palestinian Education

Last month, retired Marine General Anthony Zinni began a visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the latest in a depressingly long line of US envoys sent to nudge along the Israeli-Arab “peace process.” Zinni’s mission, it is safe to say, will...

Stupid Accounting Tricks: Managing Earnings, Part 2

I received so much feedback on my column (Stupid Accounting Tricks) that I thought I would respond en masse today and elaborate a bit on the subjects of pro forma accounting and managing earnings. First, the title of my column “Stupid Accounting Tricks”...

Ending the “Peace Process War”

When Yasser Arafat unleashed his intifada against Israel last year, I named it the “ Peace Process War. ” I wanted to capture the irony of mob violence and bombings as the culmination of seven years of an alleged “peace process.” I did not...

Phony Victims of Freedom in Academia

Phony Victims of Freedom in Academia

One of the most shameless frauds in academia today is the claim that a new “McCarthyism” is threatening academic freedom. According to this new cry of victimhood, conservative groups are “drawing up enemy lists” of professors who are opposed to...

Deflation: The Basics

Deflation is not falling prices. Deflation is not economic contraction. Deflation is when the Fed screws up. The idea of deflation has gotten more play in the press over the last two weeks than it has over the last ten years — thanks to unusual negative readings...

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