Willy Sutton, in case you are wondering, is the 1930s outlaw who achieved immortality when a reporter asked him why he robbed banks and Sutton replied, simply, “Because that’s where the money is.” It is an amusing reply because it so utterly misses...
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
Why Sharon Could Bring Peace to the Middle East
Although few know how to stop the escalating violence in the Middle East, many think they know who to blame: Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon. Surely, they say, the landslide election of such a hard-liner means the end of the peace process–and serves as...
The Racism of Reparations
Reparations advocates are not concerned with individual justice. They subscribe to the collectivist belief that individuals are merely interchangeable members of a group.
South Africa: After Apartheid
A major crusader failing is that they seldom look back to their last crusade to see how it turned out. During my several South Africa visits during its apartheid era, up to three months on one occasion, I lectured at nearly all of its universities. I had the...
Tax Cuts and Saving Social Security
Foes of President Bush’s tax-cut plan are getting desperate. They haven’t reached the point of claiming that tax cuts cause cancer and road rage, but they’re close. Depending on the day of the week, we’re told that cuts will cause inflation,...
Israel’s Deal with the Devil
The last two months have witnessed a fresh outbreak of violence in Israel and the death toll keeps rising every day. The “peace process,” which started with great fanfare when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands in front of a beaming Bill Clinton...
School Children as Political Cannon Fodder for “Social Causes”
Test scores are not the only things that tell us how bad our public schools have become. In San Francisco, the school board voted unanimously to have the city’s students take Friday, March 9th, off to go to Berkeley, in order to stage a protest demonstration,...
The Wrong Question to Ask About The Tragic School Shootings
After every tragic school shooting — and many other shocking murders — the question gets asked: “How could he do such a thing?” This has become the centerpiece of a whole set of rituals. Another part of these rituals is the appearance of...
Nader & George and Fannie & Freddie
Have pigs grown wings? Is it snowing in Hades? Ralph Nader actually said nice things about President Bush this week. The devil’s tail must be blue with frostbite. In an opinion piece Nader co-authored for The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, the standard-bearer...
Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, Ex-Klansman
Ex-Klansman Robert Byrd, the senior senator from West Virginia, casually used the phrase “white nigger” twice on national TV this weekend. Enraged civil rights groups organized a protest campaign against Sen. Byrd and demanded that he undergo sensitivity...
Big or Small Government in the U.S. and India? The Debate Isn’t Over
“Year after year in Washington, budget debates seem to come down to an old, tired argument: on one side, those who want more government, regardless of the cost; on the other, those who want less government, regardless of the need. We should leave those arguments...
The Real Reason Why Mega-Billionaires Support the Death Tax
It’s odd to hear people campaigning for a tax that’s aimed at them. But it’s happening. Some rich people are arguing that the government should keep the death (or estate) tax that was created decades ago to break up the holdings of the so-called...
Jefferson Lives: 200 Years of Peaceful Transitions
It had been a close election, so close it wasn’t settled until 10 weeks after Election Day. And it was so bitter the opponents didn’t speak for 11 years afterward. But when it was over, and Thomas Jefferson prevailed (on the 36th ballot in the House of...
Bill’s And Larry’s Continued Political Misadventures
Oral arguments in the federal government’s antitrust case against Microsoft began last Monday. Anyone reading the two new books about the battle would have to conclude that the case never would have been brought without the political intervention of some...
Mom Takes On FED Chairman Alan Greenspan
From an article on CNNfn last Friday: Alan Greenspan Chairman Alan Greenspan on Friday defended the central bank’s monetary policy, rejecting suggestions that the Fed helped trigger the economic slowdown because it waited too long to reduce interest rates....
Lockerbie Verdict Vindicates Continued Sanctions Against Libya
The outcome of the Lockerbie bombing trial underscores the need for a firm U.S. policy toward Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi. The January 31 verdict, which found one of the two indicted Libyan intelligence officials guilty of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103...
The Dangers of Egalitarianism
Any smell more subtle than ammonia or a sewage treatment plant is usually hard for me to detect. However, I happen to be able to smell gas escaping better than most people. On more than one occasion I have walked by someone’s home, smelled gas and left a note on...
Is Genetically Engineered Food Good Or Bad For You?
The shelves of our supermarkets are full of Genetically Engineered foods. From popcorn and tomatoes to beans and berries, they are all around us. Multinational corporations are investing billions of dollars on research and development of GE foods, and farmers are...
Our Inverted Budget Priorities
Five years ago, then-President Clinton stated before Congress the essence of his contradictory agenda: “The era of big government is over,” he intoned, to great applause. Then he continued, “But we cannot go back to the era when people were left to...
Thomas Sowell’s Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality
Buy Civil Rights : Rhetoric or Reality from Amazon.com In his work, Civil Rights : Rhetoric or Reality , Professor Thomas Sowell confronts the “rhetoric” of the civil rights establishment and contrasts it with the “reality” of the facts...
“Gun Control” Advocates Make Britain Safe–for Thieves, Rapists, and Muggers
The last vestige of civilized Britain has fallen away — the unarmed British “Bobbie.” For 170 years, British police functioned without guns. Since their founding by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, Bobbies walked their beats armed only with their...
Merit, Money, and the Death Tax
Some people may have found it an inspiring example of social conscience when various super-rich people, such as the Rockefellers, came out publicly against repealing the taxes that the federal government levies against the property left by people who have died. But it...
Masking Education Fraud with Racist Propaganda in California
Last week, I reported that 73 percent of California State University’s black college freshmen required remedial math and 66 percent required remedial English. In last week’s speech to the American Council on Education, Richard C. Atkinson, president of the...
Backstreet Boy’s Off-Key Junk Science Crusade
If you thought the musical offerings of the Backstreet Boys were hard on the ears, wait’ll you hear them croon about their political pet causes. One member of the famous pop singing group, Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson, has established an environmental...
Chips on the Dips?
You may have heard of the “chips on the dips” investment strategy. The idea is to buy stock in the major semiconductor firms whenever their shares fall more than 50 percent below their previous highs. While the computer-chip business is famously volatile,...
Taxing the Living and the Dead
The all-out attempt in the media to scare us away from tax cuts was epitomized by a Newsweek cover with the caption: “Bush’s $1.6 trillion gamble.” In other words, it is a gamble to let people keep their own money, but apparently it is safe to put...
Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg Pokes a Cheap Shot at Justice
While giving a talk in far-off Australia on February 1st, U. S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have thought it was safe to take a cheap shot at a fellow American back home. Nor was she restrained by the fact that what she said was a lie. Back in 1997,...
Tax Cuts, Lock Boxes, and Other Magic Words of Politics
In this modern scientific age, we no longer believe in magic words that can transform a prince into a frog, or vice versa. But there are still magic words that can cause incredible transformations. For example, there are words that can transform the most big-spending...
The Debt for Slavery–and for Freedom
The demand for slavery reparations got a good airing last weekend at a National Reparations Convention held in Chicago. A formal plan for compensating the descendants of American slaves has yet to be drafted, the Chicago Tribune reported, but among the proposals...
The Compelling Case for Tax Cuts Now: Growing Surplus, Shrinking Debt
On January 16, President Bill Clinton transmitted to Congress his final budget blueprint for fiscal year (FY) 2002, arguing in the cover letter and commentary against reducing taxes for working Americans. According to the former President, “The favorable...
In Defense of the Wealthiest One Percent
On Thursday, President Bush sent his tax-cut plan to Congress, and it was met with an immediate chorus of class-warfare yelping from the Democrats. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt led the pack, complaining that Bush’s tax cuts will go to “just the top...
Equal Rights and Good Economics Demand That Bush Should Reduce Taxes Across The Board
The Federal Reserve Board’s recent decision to put downward pressure on interest rates has temporarily quieted those who claimed George W. Bush was exaggerating the possibility of an economic downturn solely to boost his tax cut plan. Many critics, however,...
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