Last October, when President Bill Clinton signed the fiscal year 2001 agricultural appropriations bill (P.L. 106-387) into law, the United States stepped closer to a trade war with some of its largest trading partners. Because of an amendment added in conference by...
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
Bush’s Tax Cut Plan is Both Moral and Practical
It time that we replaced guilt with the desire for justice.
Atlas is Shrugging in California
“The plane was above the peaks of the skyscrapers when suddenly, with the abruptness of a shudder, as if the ground had parted to engulf it, the city disappeared from the face of the earth. It took them a moment to realize that the panic had reached the power...
If You Pretend It’s Not a Dog, Will It Stop Barking?
A Libyan intelligence agent is convicted of murder in the bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 that killed 270 people. On the same day, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) reduced interest rates by 1/2 %–for the second time in a month–in order to...
In Search of Honorable Men
If you are looking for male role models, men with spines of steel, men of courage, and men of honor, don’t open a newspaper or turn on the TV. All you’ll find are louts: — Our former president figuratively trashes the White House for eight years...
Reparations for Slavery Arguments are Loaded with Contradictions
Johnny Cochran and a group of successful trial lawyers plan to bring class-action suits against the federal government and some private companies they say profited from slavery. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has already introduced HR 40, titled “Commission to...
Philosophy: The Frivolous Discipline?
The death of a distinguished scientist or a leading novelist usually attracts public attention. But the recent death of perhaps the most celebrated figure in academic philosophy–Harvard’s Willard Van Orman Quine–attracted virtually none. This lack of...
Bring Back Justice
In John Ashcroft’s confirmation hearings for attorney general, the United States missed a rare opportunity to remedy the disastrous decline in the truth-seeking and justice-dispensing functions of the criminal justice system. When the administration of justice...
Reagan May Not Have Been “Smart”, But He Was Very “Wise”
The 90th birthday of Ronald Reagan may be an appropriate time to reassess the role of his presidency in the history of the 20th century. Some presidents simply happen to be in office when historic events occur, but other presidents make history themselves — like...
Random Thoughts
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Merit is its own reward, but it’s also nice to get a pay raise. The first big Washington scandal of the 20th century was the Teapot Dome scandal of 1921, which led three members of the Harding administration to commit...
Beware of the Many Masks of Russia’s Putin
Russia is in the news: a crackdown on the media and the oligarchs; the Kursk submarine disaster; restructuring of the Federation, including the creation of seven federal superdistricts headed mostly by generals; and a change in the way members of the upper house of...
The Conservative Welfare State
In 1960, the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand pronounced conservatism dead. The conservatives’ refusal to challenge the fundamental ideas behind the welfare state, she argued, would doom them to a policy of appeasement and timidity. Sometimes it may seem as if...
No Sense of Proportion in the Demand for Electric Cars
Mathematicians use the term “rational numbers” for numbers that can form a ratio. By this definition, there is a lot of irratioUality in California, where many people seem incapable of forming a ratio or proportion between different things....
In Search of…Civil Rights Violations
Racial charges by many black politicians, civil-rights spokesmen, self-appointed black leaders and guilt-ridden whites are just plain nonsense. They get away with them because we’re ill-informed or are too timid to question their assumptions and assertions....
The U.S. Needs to Stop Arming and Training China’s Military
Part of the reason U.S. military leaders give away too much is naiveté, not disloyalty. Part of the explanation for such actions is this romantic sense of wanting to give China something in the hopes of developing a friendship. People do really dumb things.
Alan Greenspan: Puppet or Puppet Master?
Alan Greenspan’s about-face on interest rates and tax cuts might have you wondering if he is simply reacting to his new Commander-in-Chief, or if he is seeing how much he can manipulate the economy. Under Clinton, he was an outspoken opponent of tax...
Bush Should Establish Missile Defense as a National Priority
President Bush should explain to Americans, Congress, and the world why a national missile defense system is urgently needed and how a global missile defense system will help to ensure that no country is held hostage by the threat of attack by missiles carrying...
Criminalizing Sex Ed
For decades, Planned Parenthood has been proselytizing that sex education is the answer to unwanted pregnancies and population control. The crusaders first breached the high schools, then poured into the elementary schools. Today, toddlers are taught the mechanics of...
Mel Reynolds and Bill Clinton: Bosom Buddies (The Scoop on the Clinton Pardons)
Johnny-come-lately liberals are in an uproar over former President Clinton’s peddling of White House pardons: Clinton has no shame! He’ll do anything for a quick buck! He disgraced the highest office in the land! This is news? Lost in the hoopla is...
War: The Fruit of the Middle East ‘Peace Process’
Late in September 2000, the Palestinian Authority kicked off a campaign of organized violence meant to hasten the final “liberation” of Israel from the Jews. The fighting began with mobs throwing rocks and firebombs at Jewish civilians and vehicles. Soon...
Microsoft Assault is an Inept Stab at “Industrial Policy”
The federal government’s persecution of Microsoft is a travesty–the worst combination of third-rate economics and special- interest politics. Last year’s ruling against the company may be a victory for envy-driven bureaucrats at the U.S. Justice...
The Politics of Evasion
There was a moment in the past weeks’ confirmation hearings that reveals the root of what’s wrong with our government. It was not in the most contentious or well-publicized hearing — and indeed, it was a case where Senate Democrats, Senate...
Race and the New Century
W.E.B. DUBOIS once said that the problem of the 20th century world was going to be the problem of the color line. Like many ringing predictions, it missed the mark by a wide margin. The biggest atrocity of [last] century against any people — the Holocaust...
President William Jefferson Clinton: Good-bye, Good Riddance
“NOTHING in his life,” one character in Macbeth says of another, “became him like the leaving it.” It would have been nice to say of Bill Clinton that nothing in his presidency became him like the leaving it. Those of us who spent the last...
America’s Egalitarian Army
Most people know by now that morale in the U.S. armed forces has dropped to a level not seen since the days of the Carter administration. Not to worry, say Army officials, we have a quick fix we’re implementing later this year–allowing our troops to wear...
What is a Classical Education?
Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind. The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments. In the high...
Basic Economics
One of the reasons for the confusion surrounding so many economic issues — such as the current electricity crisis in California — is an underlying confusion about what economics itself is all about. To many people, economics is about money. But economies...
The Cause of the California Power Blackouts
Californians are not only seeing rolling blackouts, they are seeing chickens coming home to roost. They are learning the most elementary facts the hard way. Fact number one: You cannot go on obstructing the building of electric power generating plants for years on end...
Gun Shows Under Fire: Bureaucrats Attempt To Ban Gun Shows
Here’s the thing about the Bill of Rights: It isn’t an a la carte menu. You can’t just pick and choose. But that’s exactly what public officials in my neighborhood want to do in their brazenly unconstitutional attempt to ban gun shows. The...
America, The Republic
The recent presidential election revealed a serious misconception about the nature of America’s government. Contrary to what so many said, including Al Gore, who claimed that “What is at stake here is the integrity of our democracy, making sure that the...
American Citizenship For Sale?
In his inaugural address, President George W. Bush issued a call to reinvigorate citizenship: “We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests, and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these...
Republicans Genuflect to Karl Marx
Few Americans realize it, but the Democratic Party adheres to the basic premise of Marxist political parties. The defining characteristic of a Marxist party is class warfare. The demonized class is “the rich,” whether the rich are capitalists,...
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