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
Now that the Arizona immigration-control law is at the Supreme Court, it's time to analyze that law. There are two levels: the philosophic level and the level of Constitutional law. Fortunately, they both point to the same conclusion. The philosophical issue is my...
Seeing Reginald Denny being assaulted and mutilated for the color of his skin on live television provided an unforgettable lesson in the politics of race-baiting: that jumping to conclusions may impair government from protecting the public and instead incur looting and killing. L.A.’s riots are a harsh reminder that replacing facts with feelings – which was done by city leaders, the president and a pack of journalists – is a matter of life and death.
With economic "fairness" the central theme of his re-election campaign, President Obama recently pitched his "Buffett Rule" tax hike to a student audience at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Aimed at those who earn the bulk of their income from capital...
You have a moral right to choose what will bring you satisfaction, joy, and happiness, as long as you respect the mutual rights of others.
In a work of historical fiction, one of the characters wrote to another about the leaders of the Communist-socialist revolution in Russia. "Their leaders were committed to peace; they had promised peace and plenty to their peasant followers, and it would likely be...
Politicians love to talk about fairness. What is fair about robbing from some to redistribute to others?
If a survey were taken, what would receive the lowest scores for quality, price, and value: The post office The state of our roads The quality of public education The price of gasoline Energy bills Wall Street Congress Chances are good that all of these would receive...
Shelby Steele is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who is critical of the civil rights movement, and of leftism in general. In The Wall Street Journal, he recently wrote that there are two tragedies as a result of the Trayvon Martin slaying....
Have you heard of Trayvon Martin? Of course you have. He’s the young man who was killed by a neighborhood watch member. Martin was reportedly unarmed and the neighborhood watch person, George Zimmerman, claims he was acting in self-defense. There is some evidence to...
Last week, NBC News became truthful, at least partially, when it issued an apology about altering a taped 911 conversation between George Zimmerman and a police dispatcher in the high-profile Trayvon Martin story, a case being linked to racism and profiling. What...
CON laws are explicitly designed to restrict competition and boost the prices that established companies can charge.
President Barack Obama is a “bully” for trying to shove his healthcare reform law down Americans’ throats and for trying to intimidate the Supreme Court into upholding the law, says staunch conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. Obama, with his inexperience, wants to...
If the Tea Party wants to have a long-term impact on American politics, it must embrace and defend individual rights.
Obama caused quite a stir recently when he implied that the Supreme Court really has no business striking down a law it considers unconstitutional. Obviously, he has nothing to fear from Elena Kagan.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi actually said this recently, in praise of ObamaCare: “You want to be a photographer or a writer or a musician, whatever -- an artist, you want to be self-employed, if you want to start a business, you want to change jobs, you no...
To people like Jackson, Sharpton and Oprah, the young man’s death is not so much a crime as an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for them to once again shine, if only for a few moments, in the adoring media spotlight.
Not a Liberal? The APA Says You’re Crazy
Dear Dr. Hurd: I’m writing in response to your Daily Dose of Reason column, “America in Reverse.” I have to say that reading that article is painful for me because I had to move back in with my mother after losing my job. I've been working odd jobs ever since, which...
What happened to the tax-cutting party of Reagan? It’s tempting to say that conservatism has lost its way. But conservatism never knew where it was going in the first place.
Faced with budget deficits, many municipalities are looking to privatization to solve their financial woes. But these efforts are not without their detractors. For example, when the issue of privatizing fire and emergency medical services (EMS) in Lansing, Michigan,...
ObamaCare completes America’s transformation to government-run health care.
Pollster and analyst Scott Rasmussen writes the following: "Along with spending on national defense and interest on the federal debt, spending on entitlement programs consumes the overwhelming majority of the federal budget. But a close look at the data shows that...
Claims of “market failure” are founded on an arbitrary assertion of how the market should operate. And when the market fails to meet this arbitrary standard, it has “failed.”
Like peeling back the layers of a rotted onion, the gradual impact of ObamaCare becomes more revealing by the day. The latest? Insurance companies who spend more than 20 percent on administrative costs will be forced, under the new law, to send rebates to...
If shareholders in communist China are allowed to keep more of their earnings than shareholders in capitalist America, which nation is more communist and which more capitalist?
The only classes in a free society, if you want to call them “classes,” are the productive and the unproductive.
If Santorum wins the Republican Party nomination, then people who want a limited government will quite literally have no place to go. They must choose between the imposition of liberal religion, or traditional religion. A “choice” between the God of Rick Santorum’s imagination, or the secular God of Barack Obama’s socialist-fascist state.
One of the primary defenders of capitalism during the latter nineteenth century was the English philosopher John Stuart Mill. Ethically, Mill was a Utilitarian, which holds that the moral is that which benefits the greatest number. Seeing the practical benefits of...
Bipartisanship? I don’t think so. In Washington-speak “bipartisanship” means only one thing: When small government and deficit-cutting advocates give in to Big Government advocates.
In August 2011, armed federal agents raided Rawsome Foods, a food cooperative in Venice, California. Agents seized computers, cash, and an estimated $70,000 worth of perishable food. The owner was arrested and charged on thirteen criminal counts. Was he selling...
Republican Rep. Allen West decried government "handouts" as the worst form of modern "slavery" during a recent speech to Congress. In modern times, West said, this has meant fighting to prevent black Americans "from being trapped in a permanent underclass through...
An excerpt from Chapter 4 of Individual Rights and Government Wrongs. What does happiness mean to you? Does it mean a career that you love? Does it mean a family? Does it mean discovering a cure for some horrible disease? Does it mean building your dream house? No...