POLITICS

Venezuela’s Lonely Rebellion

Rebelling against tyranny is a lonely business these days. If the brave citizens of an oppressed country dare to resist evil, they can expect the rest of the supposedly civilized world to react with hostility or indifference. That's the case right now in Venezuela,...

A Choice Future for Students

The big winners on Election Day weren't politicians. They were students. That's because many of the politicians who won -- Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Senator-elect James Talent of Missouri, to name just two -- are vocal supporters of school choice. Coming only a few...

Majority Leader Lott Must Go

On Thursday, December 5, 2002, Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said: "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these...

Peaceniks: Warmongers for America’s Enemies

There is an increasingly vocal movement that seeks to engage America in ever longer, wider, and more costly wars--leading to thousands and perhaps millions of unnecessary deaths. This movement calls itself the "anti-war" movement. Across America and throughout the...

Capitalism is the Best Medicine

Capitalism is the Best Medicine

This past campaign season, Democrats such as Missouri's Jean Carnahan ran spots bashing pharmaceutical companies for advertising prescription drugs and "passing the cost on to seniors." While this argument wasn't the shot in the arm Democrats hoped-- Carnahan...

Democrats: Still in the Dark

Democrats: Still in the Dark

Last month, we saw how the American people reacted to George W. Bush's first two years in the White House. "Republicans defied history by expanding their House majority in yesterday's midterm elections," reported The Washington Post on the morning after. "Combined...

The Republican Daddy State

Government-financed terrorism insurance? Republicans hope it will 'stimulate' the economy. It just might, short-term -- but at the expense of making individuals ever-more dependent on government handouts; and at the expense of reinforcing the false notion that...

Government for Sale…to Saudi Arabia?

Bush administration officials and leading U.S. senators responded very differently to the news that Princess Haifa al-Faisal, wife of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, had given many thousands of dollars to a person connected to two of the 9/11...

The Corruption of the Concept Sovereignty

No more corrupt yet popular reason exists for opposing military strikes against Islamic terrorist states out to destroy America. The reasoning goes like this: these states are "sovereign" and thereby immune from preemptive attacks. "We are really appalled by any...

The Islam Twist

"Suicide bombers twist true Islam." So goes Muslim apologists' standard song and dance. Well, let's test their theory out with a little dance of our own, one I call the "Islam Twist." Here's how it's done. First we identify an essential tenet of Islam. Then we twist...

Tax Holidays

You know that when politicians start talking "tax holidays" and "temporary tax cuts" that something's amiss. For years, conservatives have argued that tax cuts (especially across- the-board tax cuts which lower the marginal rate and the capital gains rate) are good...

Race to Judgment

Some call it a necessary step to heal long-standing racial inequality. Others call it a system of racial discrimination no better than apartheid in South Africa. It's affirmative action on campus -- and thanks to the Supreme Court, the controversial practice of...

Merck and Pfizer: Time for a Drug Binge?

In turbulent times, tastes typically turn to the tried and true. For instance, investors usually flee volatile stocks in favor of shares in the big drug companies, which keep churning out good profits, whatever the economic conditions. After all, people get sick...

Campus Diversity Fraud

Anyone familiar with the argot of modern identity politics should be able to fill the blanks in this quotation from the student newspaper at Amherst College. The speaker is explaining why the minority group he belongs to should be granted its own "diversity" seat on...

The Uncertainty Principle

"There remains an illusion among investors, especially professional money managers and analysts, that with enough digging and number-crunching, uncertainty can be conquered." Unfortunately, it can't. That's the thrust of one of the best essays on investing I have ever...

Media Bias on Media Bias

Media Bias on Media Bias

After Senator Tom Daschle created a stir by attacking Rush Limbaugh and other conservative voices in the media as somehow responsible for death threats to politicians like himself, his total absence of any evidence made him look ridiculous. However, this charge was...

Simplify the Tax Code with a Flat Tax

It's come to this: The federal government has accumulated such a huge backlog of uncollected tax debts that the IRS is thinking about hiring private bill collectors to help track down the missing funds. They're also offering deals to taxpayers who use certain tax...

Terrorist attacks in Kenya

The recent terrorist attacks in Kenya (and in Bali on Oct. 12) should be a wake-up call to all those who want to fight terrorism. Islamic terrorism will continue and worsen as long as there exists dictatorial regimes -- Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc. -- that...

Judging Judges, Part 2

Judging Judges, Part 2

Although Republicans have regained control of the Senate, in a numerical sense, controlling the Senate in reality is a much tougher job. The ability of a minority in the Senate to filibuster things they object to means that real control may require 60 votes to shut...

Judging Judges

Judging Judges

While the most immediate effect of the Republicans' election victories has been to strengthen President Bush's hand in dealing with the threat of Saddam Hussein, the most important long-run effect may be on the kind of federal judges who will shape the direction of...

Red-Tape Conservationists

Environmentalists are up in arms about a recent Bush administration proposal to reduce red tape on logging in federal lands. But what this controversy is really about is not just the "conservation" of forests, but the conservation of the vast, arbitrary authority of...

Which Way Will the Democratic Party Go?

Which Way Will the Democratic Party Go?

Given the unequivocal rout in the Nov. 5 election, there's been no shortage of friendly advice on how the Democratic Party can resuscitate itself. From Sen. Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat, looking at the prospect that Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco will become...

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