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

Are Taxes “the Price We Pay for Civilization”?

I want to challenge the premise that the tax-funded welfare state is the ideal civilized society.

The U.S. Government’s Assault on Microsoft

The U.S. Government’s Assault on Microsoft

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently accused Microsoft of violating U.S. antitrust laws, and asked a federal court to fine Microsoft an unprecedented 1$ million per day until the “violations” cease. Microsoft’s “crime” was to...

Cop Haters Dearly Loved in Hollywood

Tom Alciere, an obscure Republican lawmaker from New Hampshire, received nationwide media attention this week for posting remarks on the Internet about killing cops. What a fool. If Mr. Alciere had written his crude rantings in rhyme and embarked on a music career...

Feminization of the Military

“Boy, what’s that @#&*! growing under your nose? It looks like a &@*@#. You’d better get that &@*#! off your face by the next formation.” It was July 1959. With about 60 other recruits, I was being welcomed to basic training at...

Economics of Unionism

The Teamsters’ strike, and its pending settlement, against United Parcel Service (UPS) gives us a chance to think about unions and labor issues. In a free society, people have the right to form voluntary associations. Therefore, any impediment, including...

Extortion or Voluntary Exchange

Last month, Autumn Jackson was convicted of extortion, con- spiracy, and crossing state lines to commit a crime. When sentenced in October, she faces up to 12 years in prison and a fine up to $750,000. Miss Jackson’s in hot water because she demanded $40 million...

The Wrong Education Target

A Washington Post editorial (7/24/97) said that had the reading portion of the Stanford Achievement Test been used as this year’s criterion for promotion, 33 percent of D.C.’s third-graders and 29 percent of its eighth-graders would have been left down....

Graduated Tax for Medicare Is Immoral

Graduated Tax for Medicare Is Immoral

The U.S. Congress has been considering a steep increase in Medicare taxes for higher-income people. A tax that has been flat since its inception in the 1960s is suddenly about to become a graduated tax. If the measure becomes law, the tax for higher-income earners...

People Helping Tyrants

In pursuit of what’s deemed as worthy objectives, decent people often pave the way for tyranny. The process usually begins by the piecemeal destruction of the foundations of liberty: private property, rule of law, voluntary exchange and limited government. Those...

Public Service and Private Misery

Jonas Salk once named the ambition that guided his career: “I wanted to do independent work and I wanted to do it my way.” His ideas were opposed by the scientific establishment, but he persevered, holding nothing above the verdict of his own mind. The...

Should Laws Be Obeyed?

Should we obey laws? It all depends; some laws aren’t worthy of obedience. “There you go again, Williams;” you say, “what kind of society would there be if people decided which laws they’d obey or disobey?” That might be a problem...

MSAs: The Future of Medical Care Financing

MSAs: The Future of Medical Care Financing

I know that the MSA is the future for health care financing because it is the best option available today for returning control, responsibility and freedom of choice back to the individual, and thereby preserving and advancing quality medical care for individuals. By...

Silencing Dissent

After years of procrastination, I finally got around to reading Yale University law professor Stephen L. Carter’s, book, Reflections of An Affirmative Action Baby. Carter writes engagingly about race issues like affirmative action, racial stereotypes, and the...

Proposition 209 vs. Racism

California voters passed the California Civil Rights Initiative of 1996, more popularly known as Proposition 209 that says, “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color,...

Economic Freedom and Progress

“Economic Freedom of the World: 1997”, written by Professors James Gwartney (Florida State University) and Robert Lawson (Capital University), has just been published. It is an annual report that uses 17 objective factors to derive a summary economic...

Will There Be A Balanced Budget?

There’s been one balanced budget in the last 38 years (1969). In 1979, Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act making balanced budgets the law of the land. In 1982, a “concerned” Congress enacted what was then the largest peacetime tax increase in...

How To Restrict Liberty

Let’s look at how pressure groups are able to impose their values and preferences on others in ways that restrict liberty. To make my case, I list several restrictions that have been, are, or are being sought such as bans: on handgun ownership, abortion, smoking...

Improve Education: Fire The Experts

The best thing we can do for American education is to abolish university education departments, abolish the U.S. Department of Education and fire education “experts.” You say, “Williams, have you gone mad?” Let’s look at it. Over the last...

Air Bag Safety Coverup

Last February, I wrote about the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) air bag safety coverup and the 52 lives (32 were children) lost caused by 200 mph deploying air bags. Then there were air bag lies. In 1977, the Transportation Department...

The Americanization of Servitude

Volunteerism is touted as a celebration of the American spirit of community involvement. “Citizen service belongs to no party, no ideology,” said President Clinton. “It is an American idea, which every American should embrace.” His sentiment is...

Gender-Norming Update

In October 1994, Lt. Kara Hultgreen was killed during an attempted landing of her F-14 on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. Femfeared (fear of feminists) Navy officials first re ported that engine failure caused the death of the Navy’s first female F-14...

Economics 101

Many people think economics is about businesses and financial institutions but economics is much broader than that. Economic theory makes a valuable contribution whenever there are costs and benefits of any human action. Take dating. Suppose you see a fat, old, ugly,...

The Coming Social Security Disaster

The Coming Social Security Disaster

The Social Security’s Board of Trustees’ most recent report predicts the system will be insolvent by the year 2029; they had been predicting insolvency in 2030. By 2010, the Social Security system will be running deficits, the year when the Social Security...

Freeloaders

John Stossel’s ABC special “Freeloaders” which aired last week showed just how far we’ve come to being a nation of parasites. It featured people (thieves) who’d go to a restaurant, eat half their meal, and then place an insect in the...

Cosmic Justice

Dr. Thomas Sowell, Hoover Institution’s distinguished senior fellow, delivered a lecture in New Zealand last year titled “The Quest for Cosmic Justice.” He discussed how often we observe tragic differences in the lives of people. Some live in luxury;...

Duped Americans

For nearly four decades, the education establishment has delivered one failure and set of excuses after another. Education for blacks is nothing less than a catastrophe and education for white kids is nothing to write home about. People can and do make mistakes and...

Iraq: The Wrong War

President Clinton’s air strike against Iraq is more than geographically misguided. Clinton is fighting the wrong country for the wrong reasons. Because he “doesn’t want to take sides,” Clinton has launched missiles and flown patrols well away...

Virginia’s Father’s Wisdom

Soon I’ll write to Virginia’s Governor George Allen demanding that he keeps the faith with his predecessors who, in 1788, ratified the Constitution and brought Virginia into the Union. Let’s do some thinking out loud about this letter just to make...

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