Last week I noticed two important articles in the press regarding the Asian recovery. "Fortune" magazine, representing the new "establishment" view, ran an article celebrating the Asian economic recovery, giving the IMF credit for the improvements. In sharp contrast,...
POLITICS
The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home
When I began to write this review, I hemmed and hawed about where to begin. Flipping through the meaty 764 pages, I was amused to note that the authors began the section entitled, "Using The Well-Trained Mind Without Losing Your Own" with the upfront statement, "This...
Animal’s “Rights” Versus Man’s Rights: Animal “Rights” Activists Want to Sacrifice Man’s Rights
Human life versus animal life. This fundamental conflict of values was dramatized on June 23 in Washington D.C., when an animal rights march was opposed by AIDS victims marching in support of research on animals. It is an indisputable fact that many thousands of lives...
Book Review of The Prime Movers: Traits of The Great Wealth Creators
Over the last 250 years, the quality of life throughout the world has been transformed. Life expectancy has increased from nineteen years in 1750 to seventy years today, and practically everyone today lives better than a king in the 1700s. There has been more progress...
The “Third Way” Moves Two Ways In Europe
In recent years, the leftist parties of England and Germany returned to power by promising voters that they had turned their back on command and control, tax and spend, economic policies. Instead they promised to "transcend" the old right and left by pursuing an...
Sex and Beer Versus The Government: The Disease of Bureaucracy
Some months ago MSNBC.com reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate raising the state tax on a six-pack of beer by 20 cents could reduce the nation's gonorrhea rate by almost 9 percent.1How are beer and a sexually transmitted disease...
The Perils of Gun Ownership?
1. Ted Kennedy, Rosie O'Donnell, Charles Schumer, and Barbara Boxer strongly denounce private gun ownership. However, their bodyguards carry:A. Toy guns with trigger locks B. A tape recorded message that says "Boo!" C. CandyD. Slingshots E. Very heavy purses2. You and...
The Fundamental Cause of Today’s Social Ills
So philosopher Mark Kingwell [Re: Burgled in the World's Best Country, National Post, July 12, 2000] believes that the cause of social ills like "crime and riots and beggars on the street" is the envy created by people experiencing poverty? Leaving aside all the...
What Happened to Our Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
On Independence Day we commemorate the birth of America as a free nation. But even more than that, we commemorate the birth of Americans as free men. At a single stroke, the Declaration of Independence and its ideals set America free from England, and set Americans...
Why I Won’t Celebrate Canada Day This July
This year I will not celebrate Canada Day -- as a matter of principle. I fully recognize Canada as being one of the best places to live in the world -- but that relative assessment doesn't justify the injustices perpetrated by our federal and provincial governments....
Summer of Hypocrites
Summer is here, and again we awaken to the smell of magnolias, honeysuckle and hypocrisy. Anti-gunner Rosie O'Donnell certainly deserves whatever personal protection she deems necessary. She fears for her child's safety and thus hired a bodyguard to accompany him. But...
Pirates of the Internet
For years, lawyers representing Silicon Valley were rightly emphasizing the importance of intellectual property rights.Such rights were the major issue in the final Uraguay round of GATT meetings. At that time, trade negotiators warned that American companies and...
Who Is The World Health Organization Trying To Fool?
On June 21st, the World Health Organization published The World Health Report 2000. The most remarkable fact about the report does not concern its results, but rather the underlying premises that guide the organization and that led to such results. The results of the...
Why Socialism Must Always Fail: Ludwig Von Mises on Economic Calculation under Socialism
"Without calculation, economic activity is impossible. Since under Socialism economic calculation is impossible, under Socialism there can be no economic activity in our sense of the word ... All economic change, therefore, would involve operations the value of which...
How the right to self-defense became a crime to defend one’s own life in England
On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term. How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once-great British Empire?How did it become...
Hong Kong’s Contradictory Property Policies
Once again, the Hong Kong government has swung from manic to depressive over its property market. A few years ago, in an attempt to gain popularity with the poor, the government reacted to high property prices by promising more government housing programs and more...
Shays’ Rebellion and the Spirit of Freedom
In 1786 New England farmers, oppressed by taxation, launched a series of rebellions against state authorities. Beginning with popular protests at town meetings, the demonstrations spread to local courthouses and legislatures. The statehouse in Hew Hampshire was...
Let’s Kill the Death Tax
On June 9th, by a majority of two thirds, Congress representatives voted to repeal the federal estate tax. The most impressive thing, however, was to hear arguments for the repeal being advanced on moral grounds. It seems that at least some politicians grasped the...
Krugman’s Green Cheese is All Rotten
I read a most outrageous article in last Sunday's New York Times written by Paul Krugman, the Times' Keynesian economist in residence. (Available with free registration) Entitled "Green Cheese Rules," the article was inspired by a theory proposed by the famous...
The Good Times of Johnnie L. Cochran
Look in the dictionary, under the word "gall." You might find a picture of defense attorney Johnnie L. Cochran. If it doesn't appear, it should. June 12, 2000, marks the sixth anniversary of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. On "Larry King Live,"...
Gore’s Prescription Plan Is Unjust and Unhealthy
Al Gore’s vow to “take on” the prescription drug industry will continue the decades-long hobbling of the American health care industry, said a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.
An Open Letter to Bill Gates
The Justice Department committed a grave injustice against you, Bill Gates. Your crime was to be too ambitious and too successful in a society riddled with envy. You were condemned for your ability, which made you stand out from the crowd.The wealth you own is the...
“Humanitarian” Food and Medicine Bill for Cuba is Anything but Pro-Human
Fidel Castro’s use of food and medicine as weapons of control over the Cuban population is a tactic as old as the Revolution itself.
End the Social Security Ponzi Scheme Now
“Social Security’s purpose is not to help you pay for your own retirement, but to force you to pay for your neighbor’s retirement or your neighbor’s parents’ retirement,”
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