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

Why Health Insurance in America Lacks Rationality and How To Fix It

How the government drove out the science of risk from the entire business of consumer pricing of health care insurance.

What Is Intelligence?

What Is Intelligence?

One of the longest-running controversies in history has been that between those who believe intelligence to be inherited and those who see it as determined by environment. If time has not resolved that question, it has at least led to sharper definitions of the...

Betrayal of the Civil Rights Struggle

Five police “mini-stations” will be located in Detroit public schools this year, primarily due to the merging of students from several high schools on the city’s west side. According to a Sept. 1 Detroit Free Press article, armed police officers will...

Columbia, Duke and the Media

Columbia, Duke and the Media

On page 28 of last Sunday’s New York Times, right opposite the page where the obituaries were, at the very bottom was a news item almost exactly the size of a 3-by-5 card. It was a fraction of an Associated Press dispatch about Richard Brodhead, president of...

Re-Importing Cheap Pharmaceuticals

The Ayn Rand Institute recently issued a very good press release attacking a bill passed by the House of Representatives that seeks to give Americans the “right” to re-import prescription drugs from countries, such as Canada, where they are sold more...

Who Really Supports Our Troops?

In the aftermath of General David Petraeus’s controversial report to Congress on the progress of the troop surge in Iraq, debate over what to do with our troops in Iraq is as strong as ever. And, as always, both liberals and conservatives claim that they, and...

Global Warming Hysteria

Despite increasing evidence that man-made CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas and contributor to climate change, politicians and others who wish to control our lives must maintain that it is. According to the Detroit Free Press, Rep. John Dingell wants a...

Law Versus Mob Rule

Law Versus Mob Rule

It is painful — and dangerous — how little we learn from history, even when it is recent history. Just a year ago, “rape” charges spread lynch-mob hysteria on the campus of Duke University and in much of the liberal media, while professional...

Why Did Sicko Fizzle Out?

Why Did Sicko Fizzle Out?

Michael Moore’s Sicko has had a respectable box office performance for a documentary film. But it has drawn only a small fraction of the audience that turned out for his previous film, Fahrenheit 9/11. Sicko opened in a relatively small number of theaters, with...

The Un-American Call for National Service

The lead article in a recent issue of Time magazine makes the case for “universal national service”–which the article describes as “the simple but compelling idea that devoting a year or more to national service, whether military or civilian,...

Photo Op for Terrorism at Ground Zero

Why did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad want a “photo op” at Ground Zero? Doesn’t he hate the United States and everything it stands for? If not, then perhaps he aims at peace more than we assume? As I always say: Look at what people do, not at...

Sicko: What Michael Moore Forgot to Tell You

Sicko: What Michael Moore Forgot to Tell You

Michael Moore’s comedy-drama Sicko presented a great deal of misinformation–too much to summarize in a short column. Besides, if anyone in the audience really believed that all Cubans receive superb health care when Mr. Moore’s cameras are not...

Economics and Property Rights

Economic theory does not operate in a vacuum. Institutions, such as the property rights structure, determine how the theory manifests itself. Similarly, the law of gravity isn’t repealed when a parachutist floats gently down to earth. The parachute simply...

Insulting Blacks

Insulting Blacks

What does it say about blacks who can be taken in by pandering, alarmist nonsense from both whites and blacks as a means to get their votes?

High-Speed Car Chases By The Police

High-Speed Car Chases By The Police

High-speed car chases by police on highways, or even on residential streets, have become a staple of television news. An estimated 500 people died as a result of high-speed car chases last year. Nearly half the people killed were innocent third parties. The police...

On The Politicization of Healthcare

On The Politicization of Healthcare

Open Public Hearing; Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committees to the Food and Drug Administration; Gaithersburg, Maryland “Good Afternoon. I am Richard Ralston, Executive Director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine....

The War in Iraq: Worse Than Doing Nothing

On the anniversary of 9/11, we are reminded that the forces of Islamic totalitarianism continue to threaten our lives. What should we do to protect ourselves? Depressingly, today’s prevailing answer is to urge some form of “diplomacy”–and rule...

No “Health Care” in America?

No “Health Care” in America?

During the first 30 years of my life, I had no health insurance. Neither did a lot of other people, back in those days. During those 30 years, I had a broken arm, a broken jaw, a badly injured shoulder, and miscellaneous other medical problems. To say that my income...

Random Thoughts September 2007

Random Thoughts September 2007

Random thoughts on the passing scene: I can’t get as fiercely involved as some other people do in controversies about the origins of human life on earth. I wasn’t there. One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are...

The Left’s Investment in Failure

The Left’s Investment in Failure

It is not just in Iraq that the political left has an investment in failure. Domestically as well as internationally, the left has long had a vested interest in poverty and social malaise. The old advertising slogan, “Progress is our most important...

The Pope Sanctions the OECD Thugs

London’s Times Online recently reported that, according to Vatican sources, Pope Benedict XVI is working on his second encyclical, a doctrinal pronouncement that will condemn tax evasion as “socially unjust.” (See...

No Trade-Offs?

No Trade-Offs?

A whole nation following the tragedy of a mine cave-in in Utah was struck by the further tragedy of another cave-in at the same mine, killing men who had gone underground to try to rescue the miners trapped there. The second tragedy was avoidable — but only if...

The Bush Administration’s Latest Deadly Evasion

The Bush administration’s plan to declare Iran‘s Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization is worse than a waste of time: It is an outright evasion of the Iranian assault on America . There is a good reason why the New York City Police Department...

Multiculturalism’s War on Education

Back to school nowadays means back to classrooms, lessons and textbooks permeated by multiculturalism and its championing of “diversity.” Many parents and teachers regard multiculturalism as an indispensable educational supplement, a salutary influence...

How Mugabe is Destroying The Zimbabwean Economy

Readers of The New York Times got a front-page example recently of what F.A. Hayek called “the fatal conceit” — the idea that some great mind or committee can do a better job than the private market in organizing and directing an economy. Hayek...

Celebrating Income Inequality

Democrat and Republican candidates for President are debating one another on nearly every issue–but nearly all are united on one thing: America faces a crisis of “income inequality.” The rich are getting richer, the refrain goes, while the poor and...

Tragic Implications in Minnesota and in Utah

Tragic Implications in Minnesota and in Utah

Two recent tragedies — in Minnesota and in Utah — have held the nation’s attention. The implications of these tragedies also deserve attention. Those politicians who are always itching to raise tax rates have seized upon the neglected infrastructure...

The Wisconsin Experiment with Socialized Medicine

The Wisconsin Experiment with Socialized Medicine

“On, Wisconsin … run the ball clear down the field!” It’s time to amend the Wisconsin football song so we can cheer on the Badger State’s politicians as they move toward health-care socialism. The Wall Street Journal editorial-page...

Silencing Dissent on Global Warming

Global warming has become a big-ticket item in the eyes of its supporters. At stake are research funds, jobs and the ability to control lives all over the globe. Most climatologists agree that over the last century, the Earth’s average temperature has risen...

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.