A man puffing a cigarette stood beneath a tree and looked up to find a pigeon sitting on the branch squarely above his head. “Go ahead,” he said to the bird. “Everybody else has.” Memo to non-cigarette smokers: You’re next. After over 30...
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
Don’t Wear Your Race On Your Sleeve
Remember the President’s recent town hall meeting on sports and race, where he encouraged team owners to hire more minorities for management jobs? A small article in the sports pages illustrates a big, yet unspoken, problem. The Massachusetts Commission Against...
The “Hollywoodization” of the News
“Channel 4 News sincerely apologizes for broadcasting the suicide of a man on a freeway in downtown Los Angeles. We did not anticipate this man’s actions in time to cut away, and we deeply regret that any of our viewers saw this tragedy on our air.”...
Stepping Up and Proposition 209
Have you been watching the NBA playoffs? Have you noticed the increased intensity of play? Players who seemed lethargic during the regular season suddenly dive for balls, furiously guard opponents and display greater emotion. Coaches call it “stepping up”...
‘Anti-Discrimination’ Laws Destroy ‘Human’ Rights and Institutionalize Bigotry
In 1991, Delwin Vriend was fired from his job as a lab co-ordinator at a private Christian college in Edmonton, Alberta, for being an active homosexual, a “lifestyle choice” that contravened the college’s moral code. Vriend took the Government of...
Software Rights, Browsers, Netscape, and Microsoft
One reader has wondered whether the recent attacks on Microsoft stem from the fact that software intellectual property rights are not predominantly protected by patent law, but rely in part on copyright law. The reader said this in context of a suggestion that...
The Media and Jerry Springer
This just in: The Jerry Springer Show is “fake”! Springer unmasked! America outraged! Excuse me, but isn’t the media calling Jerry Springer “fake” sort of like Jeffrey Dahmer calling carnivores immoral? Sixteen former Springer guests...
A Health Care Solution: Medical Savings Accounts
America’s health care system is failing. Many Americans alarmed by this fact voice their usual mantra: “Something must be done.” But virtually every “something” politicians enact — such as Medicare reform, government-mandated HMOs,...
Hoop Dreams and the “Black-White Gap”
The brilliant documentary Hoop Dreams follows two young inner-city black boys who envision careers in the NBA. Neither makes it. Sadder, though, were the kids’ parents. So convinced of their children’s NBA destiny, they spent little time encouraging their...
The Department of Professions
Imagine that in 1917 our government usurped each individual’s crucial responsibility of choosing their own profession, and that primarily because this government agency, called the Department of Professions (the DOP), has existed for generations, most Americans...
Collectivism’s Sacred Cow: Public Education
When I need to purchase a new computer (or software program), I know that computer entrepreneurs are free to innovate and compete for my money, and I am free to choose the best offer in terms of performance, quality and price. Am I free to purchase the best education...
TWA: Teaching While Asian
DWB: Driving While Black. That’s an expression some blacks use to argue that police unfairly single them out. Let’s try a new one: TWA — Teaching While Asian. Imagine you’re fifth-grade teacher Marylin Fong, an Asian, who last week got dinged...
Protection of Individual Rights is Good Government
Good government? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Many today believe so. Who can blame them? Our political system has increasingly become a chaotic jungle driven by competing pressure groups (“special interests”) seeking special “favours” and...
Waiting for Fidel
BOOK REVIEW: WAITING FOR FIDEL By Christopher Hunt (Houghton Mifflin, $13) The Pope’s visit to Cuba and Fidel Castro’s subsequent release of political prisoners this week are a reminder that the Communist dictator still has a grip on Cuba’s fate....
The Clinton Commission: One Does Not Stop Racism By Practicing It
March 15, 1998 To Ms. Winston, As an individualist, I am disturbed by racism; therefore I oppose One America in the 21st Century, President Clinton’s initiative on race. I have followed the events of this commission closely and contend that it must ultimately...
Abolish The IMF
In the past year, foreign nations taking IMF advice on currency, tax and banking policies have suffered over $200 billion in loan losses and capital flight. The IMF has been pouring the funds of Western taxpayers into these regimes as fast as local wealth has been...
Lessons from the Great Ice Storm: Individualism vs Collectivism
The Great Ice Storm of 1998 caught Canadians in Quebec and neighboring provinces totally off guard. Montreal, the hardest hit, looked as if it were bombed by ice. Millions suffered days to weeks of sub-freezing temperatures without electricity and heating. At least 25...
Global Treaty Banning Landmines is a Moral Obscenity
Contrary to media reports, the UN-sponsored “global” treaty banning land mines signed in December of 1997 by more than 100 nations, excluding the US, Russia and China, is not about preventing innocent people from being maimed or killed by the existing...
Microsoft is Successful Because It is Competitive
Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder and Chairman, had to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week because his competitors, the government, and his other foes have manipulatively vilified him. They unjustly characterize Microsoft’s dominance in...
The American Health Care System’s Deadly Virus: Socialist Controls
America’s health care system ailments, such as skyrocketing costs and restrictions on the freedom to choose a doctor, are prevalently ascribed to our mixed economy’s capitalist aspects, while their alleged remedies lie in the economy’s other aspect:...
Individual Rights: Key To Restoring National Unity in Canada
‘National unity crisis’ makes many Canadians immediately think of the looming threat of Quebec separation. But the crisis is broader. Many non-Quebeckers are fed up with the way the federal government is running the country. Quebec separatism is one...
Vindicating the Founders: What Kind of Guys Were the Founding Fathers
Today’s students are often taught that our Founding Fathers were racists. Textbooks make comments like, “The sublime principles of the Declaration did not apply to them [blacks]. They were for whites only.” The late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood...
The Department of Justice vs God
[HUMOR] In an unprecedented move, the Department of Justice yesterday filed an antitrust lawsuit against Christianity for its monopoly on religion in the US marketplace. Attorney General Janet Reno defended the lawsuit, saying, “For too long, Christianity has...
Is Social Security Moral? The Looting of Our Retirement Savings Is the Product of Altruism
President Clinton has announced that the precarious Social Security system can be saved by giving it first claim on future federal surpluses. His top priority, he told the nation, is to ensure that “Social Security will be there when you need it.” But Mr....
John Dewey’s Legacy To Education: Teen Violence
Reena Virk, a 14-year-old teenage girl, was brutally beaten and murdered on the night of Nov. 14, 1997, in the Victoria suburb of Saanich, British Columbia. Seven teens, six of them girls aged 14-16, face charges of aggravated assault. Paradoxically, this...
Health Care Is Not A Right
So long as people believe that socialized medicine is a noble plan, there is no way to fight it.
Racism is Only a Conservative Problem, Right?
Last year, Representative. Bob Barr, Republican of Georgia, gave the keynote speech before the Council of Conservative Citizens. What is the Council of Conservative Citizens? It is a southern organization that considers whites superior to blacks and equates...
Janet Reno: Rank Amateur
Dear Miss Reno: You’ve had some impressive victories lately. With a single press announcement, you’ve made Microsoft a marked company, targeted for the crime of promoting “unfair competition” – all because it insists that parts of its...
Ten Things Everyone Ought To Know About Global Warming
With all the hype about global warming and climate disasters filling the journals and air waves, here are some facts that need to be more widely known: The climate is never just “average”; it changes all the time, from season to season, year to year, and...
Mourning Bill Gates
Many people have wondered: Will the death of Mother Theresa be mourned as greatly as the death of Princess Diana? But personally, I have wondered how many people would mourn the loss of Bill Gates. The philosopher Ayn Rand taught us that man’s highest moral...
Egalitarianism in Football
The sports section of the November 18th edition of the Globe and Mail (Canada’s national newspaper) carried an article about Doug Flutie, the star quarterback of the Toronto Argonauts. The Argos are Toronto’s team in the Canadian Football League; they had...
A Double Standard of Justice Toward Microsoft
In 1988, Microsoft offered manufacturers of personal computers a considerable discount on the licensing fees they pay to install MS-DOS and Windows operating system on new PCs prior to their leaving the factory. In exchange it required manufacturers to pay for each...
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