Does anyone remember the Field of the Blackbirds? It was in the news quite frequently about a year ago, back when people were still paying attention to the mess in Kosovo. The Field of the Blackbirds is the battlefield where a Serbian army was defeated by the Ottoman...
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
A “Do-Something” Congress
Lawmakers can rack up some real accomplishments if they’re willing to reconsider some of the bipartisan reform measures scuttled by President Clinton. You’ve no doubt heard by now what political pundits on both sides of the ideological aisle are saying...
What Non-Profit Colleges Hate More Than Academic Censorship: For-Profit Colleges
YOU MAY NEVER HAVE HEARD of the University of Phoenix, but it has more students than Harvard, Yale or Notre Dame —- combined. There is a reason you probably have not heard of the University of Phoenix. It represents a new development in higher education and one...
Slavery Compensation Itself Rests on Racism
The suit filed against the U.S. government and big corporations demanding “compensation” for the descendents of slaves is grotesque and should be dismissed without a hearing, said an Ayn Rand Institute Fellow. “Slavery was evil, but America atoned...
Military Modernization: Making America Safe for the 21st Century
President-elect George W. Bush hasn’t been sworn in yet, but he’s already made a decision pivotal to the success of his administration: selecting Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. For those who care about America’s ability to defend itself,...
When You Should–and Should Not–Help Others
Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged wrote, “When people need help, the best of them (those who need it through no fault of their own) often prefer to starve rather than accept assistance — while the worst of them (the professional parasites) run riot...
The Virtue of Greed
YOU CAN CALL IT GREED, selfishness or enlightened self-interest, but the bottom line is that it’s these human motivations that get wonderful things done. Unfortunately, many people are naive enough to believe that it’s compassion, concern and...
Political Change Requires Moral Conviction
One of the reasons Republicans govern less successfully than Democrats is that conviction is rarer among Republicans. Under fierce intellectual attack since the days of Calvin Coolidge (the 1920s), Republicans have been made unsure of their ideas — a strong...
U.S. Foreign Policy towards India Should Not Compromise U.S. Security
America and India share the distinction of being the world’s largest “democracies.” Yet relations between the two countries have been unsteady and will need executive attention if they are to improve. A major stumbling block to relations in recent...
Political Advice for President George Bush
No sooner do we elect a new president than we start telling him what to do. People in the media are full of advice, perhaps more so this year than usual. Because of the closeness of both the presidential and congressional elections, much media advice seems to be that...
Black Slavery is Alive in 2001
Black slaves are still available — just not in the United States. To make a purchase, you’d have to travel to the Sudan as Gerald Williams, Harvard University pre-med student, did in October 2000. Slavery in the Sudan is in part a result of a 15-year war...
Bill Clinton’s Legacy of Lasting Corruption
After Bill Clinton, Al Gore and various Congressional Democrats had pointed the finger of suspicion at Big Oil as the cause of astronomical gasoline prices in the Midwest, the Washington Times obtained a copy of a memorandum from within the Clinton administration...
Bill Gates, Meet Ayn Rand
If you want to understand what is happening to Microsoft, read “Atlas Shrugged,” Ayn Rand’s classic story of the bureaucratic assault on the entrepreneurial spirit. In “Atlas Shrugged,” Hank Rearden, inventor of the fabulous Rearden...
More Guns, Less Crime?
In response to the tragic shootings at Columbine High School and the Los Angeles JCC, the relation of gun availability to violent crime has been furiously debated in the media. One highly visible scholar in the media debate is economist and social scientist, John...
Tax Slaves Existing for Government
Alan Keyes, a candidate for the Republican 2000 presidential nomination, argues that the income tax is a slave tax and that Americans are slaves. He is correct. A slave is a person who does not own his own labor. After tax, successful Americans retain no more of the...
Where is the Future?
Where are the flying cars? It is now 2001, and for those of us who insist on technicalities, this is the real, official beginning of the 21st century. So I want to know: Where is the future predicted for us by science fiction writers — you know, the future of...
Microsoft and Liberty
Think about the government’s case against Microsoft and, just as importantly, it’s implications for our liberty. Let’s ask a general question just to get started. If there’s an act we all agree is immoral and unacceptable when done by an...
The End of Montgomery Ward
The passing of a once-great business is often a time for nostalgia and regret, so the announced closing down of Montgomery Ward has provoked much media comment along these lines. But both the rise and the fall of Montgomery Ward illustrates the dynamic adjustments of...
Global Economic Freedom Continues to Gain Survey Shows
More countries expanded economic freedom during the past year than curtailed it, The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal report in their annual “Index of Economic Freedom.” The survey showed 70 of the 155 countries rated granted their citizens...
U.S Should Not Use Trade Agreement to Hold Chile Hostage
On November 29, the United States and Chile came one step closer to achieving (in the words of President Bill Clinton) a “mutual commitment to advancing free and open trade and investment in the Americas.” Chile received this long-sought invitation to...
Ignoring A “Hate Crime” in D.C.
Here in the land of pontificators and tolerance preachers, a hateful crime goes unpunished. President Clinton, our lame duck lip-biter, is nowhere to be found. Neither are the chest-beaters at the New York Times. And the rainbow coalition of loud-mouthed minority...
Feminization of Gun Debate Drowns Out Sober Analysis
WHEN IT COMES to talking about guns, responsible women should adopt Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo pledge: No more tears. No more mom-in-tennis-shoes proselytizing. No more irrational NRA-bashing. No more maudlin sermons. Alas, the sopping feminization of...
Listen to Venus Williams Advice on Taxes
Basically, the tax system is designed to punish success. Work harder than the next guy, innovate, invest wisely, or get lucky–and the government will put the squeeze on you. Almost every argument made by liberals against tax cuts, it seems, comes down to a...
Tax Competition: Harmful to Whom?
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based institution with 29 member nations from the industrialized world, has launched a project seeking the elimination of “harmful tax competition.” In a report titled...
The OECD Vision: One Big International Welfare State with High Taxes Across the Globe
The Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) is comprised of 29 industrial nations, mostly in Western Europe, the Pacific Rim and North America. They’ve recently released a report titled “Towards Global Tax Cooperation” that...
The Ghost of America’s Health Care Future Lives in Canada Today
Imagine a world in which you’re forbidden to spend your own money to obtain medical care. Imagine that, regardless of your personal needs, you’re forced to rely on the government for health care, no matter how long it takes or how substandard it may be. A...
How the Greenspan Stole Christmas
A cloud is hanging over this year’s Christmas season: the cloud of recession. You can see it in weak Christmas shopping sales and the desperate deals being offered by car makers. You can see it in the words of a shopper interviewed on television, who explained...
Who are the “Wealthiest One Percent of Taxpayers”?
So who are these cads, this “wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers,” anyway? We heard a lot about this select group of villains in the presidential debates. Indeed, certain politicians almost seem to hold their noses, their voices dripping with disdain, as...
The Counter-Money Laundering Act is an Attack on Privacy and Liberty to Help Prop Up Welfare State Regimes
Congress has renewed its efforts to combat international money laundering this past August. In the House of Representatives, Representative Jim Leach (R-IA) has introduced H.R. 3886, the International Counter-Money Laundering Act, which has moved swiftly through the...
The Medicare Bureaucracy is a Frankenstein Monster That is Destroying American Medicine
The complex system for Medicare reimbursement for physicians is based on over 7,000 medical treatment codes. You know we’re in big trouble in medicine today when there’s a code not only for flatulence, but one for the guy standing downwind as well....
How the Left Lives On The Backs of the Poor
The privations and sufferings of the poor have long been central themes in the vision of the political left. That is what attracted many of us to the left in our youth. But the actual consequences of the agenda of the left on the poor — and on others — is...
Alice in Florida
Even those of us who have been complaining for years about the bias and shallowness of the media should admit that we never expected the media to be quite so grossly biased or so unbelievably shallow as they have been about the outcome of the recent presidential...
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