Supporters and opponents of President Bush’s Iraq War are clashing in a furious debate over who truly supports our troops. The President’s critics say they are supporting our troops by setting a timetable to bring them home from an...
POLITICS
Worry About the Right Things
For the past two weeks I’ve written about how the media — part of the Fear Industrial Complex — profit by scaring us to death about things that rarely happen, like terrorism, child abductions, and shark attacks. We do it because we get caught up in...
The Shame of Higher Education
Many of our nation’s colleges and universities have become cesspools of indoctrination, intolerance, academic dishonesty and the new racism. In a March 1991 speech, Yale President Benno Schmidt warned, “The most serious problems of freedom of expression in...
In Defense of Income Inequality
The issue of income inequality reveals one of the ugliest aspects of today’s culture. The ugliness stems not from the existence of income inequality–but from the motives of those who denounce it. Income inequality used to be a rabble-rousing issue of the...
Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley
Imagine opening tomorrow’s newspaper and reading this: “Citing all-too-frequent child abuse and neglect, Congress has proposed the Parenting Reform Act. Under the proposed law, all parents must swear that they have not ’caused unreasonable physical...
Global Warming Heresy
Most climatologists agree that the earth’s temperature has increased about a degree over the last century. The debate is how much of it is due to mankind’s activity. Britain’s Channel 4 television has just produced “The Great Global Warming...
What to Do About High Gasoline Prices
In response to recent rises in gas prices, we are once again hearing calls for the government to “do something” to force prices lower. But no matter what the price of gasoline is, such calls are wrong. All market fluctuations in the price of gasoline, up...
Should the Veterans Administration Take Over All Health Care?
For years the advocates of a total takeover of health care by the government have pointed to the Veterans Administration as the model of efficient and caring health care by our government. It provides an ideal model, they said, for all health care. They must have...
Hazardous Safety Regulation
Whenever someone is hurt in an accident, people say, “There ought to be a law!” Politicians rush to oblige them and then take credit for all the lives they saved. But shouldn’t they also accept blame for the lives lost because of those laws? Lives...
Regrets for Slavery
Both chambers of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s General Assembly passed a resolution saying government-sanctioned slavery “ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation’s history;...
The Fear Industrial Complex
We can scare ourselves stupid. Consider vaccines. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the mercury in them has “poisoned an entire generation! It’s causing IQ loss, mental retardation, speech delay, language delay, ADD, hyperactivity!” The news media love this...
Take a Stand for the Rights of Physicians
While Governor Schwarzenegger and California legislators are busy putting forward proposals to socialize health care, one element is profoundly missing: none of these politicians know or care what physicians think of the proposals. It should have occurred to them that...
Democracy or Liberty
Does democracy really deserve the praise it receives? According to Webster’s Dictionary, democracy is defined as “government by the people; especially: rule of the majority.” What’s so great about majority rule? Let’s look at majority...
Modern Politics as Modern Art
The mere allegation that the one side is “playing politics” is like a catch-all smear to stop any opposition in its tracks.
Profits Lower the Cost of Health Care in the Long Run
Advocates of medical socialism want to reduce the profits of pharmaceutical firms and put health insurance companies out of business completely. But who profits from profits–and exactly who profits when they are destroyed? Critics point to supposedly lower...
Stocks Look Cheap Historically, But They May Get Cheaper
With stocks at new highs, are prices too high for the value-minded investor to pay? I say no — although if you are a value-minded trader, the answer may be yes. The way I look at stock valuations is by comparing consensus forward earnings to current long-term...
No Drug Price Controls
The Democrats who now control Congress want to change President Bush’s Medicare drug benefit to require government officials to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. Under the current program, competing insurance companies cut the deals and...
Nonsense Ideas About Economics
There are some ideas and feelings that sound plausible but given just a wee bit of thought can be shown to border on lunacy. Let’s examine a few. Some U.S. companies have been accused of exploiting Third World workers with poor working conditions and low wages....
Social Security is a Monstrous Injustice
Throughout the nation, a fierce debate rages over Social Security. One side, led by President Bush, says the system is in crisis and must be saved via “partial privatization.” The other side says the system is basically sound and can be saved with a little...
Religion vs. Liberty
America’s war on terrorism is being undercut–by the administration’s efforts to inject religion into politics.
Universal Health Insurance: Schwarzenegger Terminates Good Government
Schwarzenegger’s Folly Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants all Californians to have medical insurance. So he’s going to force them to have it. Schwarzenegger abandoned his opposition to mandated employer-based health insurance and embraced the idea as his...
Multiculturalism’s Real Agenda
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...
Washington’s Make-Believe Policy on Iran
The Bush administration claims to have a way to deter the militant theocracy of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons–and thwart its ambition to bring “death to America.” Washington’s plan aims to pressure Teheran, financially and...
One Step Forward, Ten Steps Back: How California Will Make Health Care Much More Expensive
California is a huge state with a huge population, a huge economy and a huge, rapidly growing government. Any attempt by that government to address health care issues draws the aggressive lobbying attention of a huge number of corporate, union, religious and political...
Panic in Boston
A few weeks ago, men working for an advertising agency installed light screens in cities to promote a Cartoon Network program. No one seemed alarmed by the signs featuring cartoon characters flipping the bird — until suddenly, weeks after the promotion began,...
World Poverty
If you’re looking for a map of world poverty, check out the “2007 Index of Economic Freedom” jointly published by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. You might think that’s a strangely titled source for a poverty map. The 13th...
Grammar Made Fashionable: Phyllis Davenport’s “Rex Barks”
I began my career as a private teacher for a few families committed to providing their children with a real education. These parents had abandoned a fruitless search for a school in which their children would read the classics of literature, learn the story of...
Property Rights After the Kelo Decision
“Imprimis” is Hillsdale College’s monthly publication that has over 1.25 million readers. It’s Hillsdale’s way of sharing the ideas of the many distinguished speakers invited to their campus. And, I might add, Hillsdale College is one of...
Faith's War against Worldliness
“The Muslim loves death and martyrdom, just as you love life. There is a great difference between he who loves the Hereafter and he who loves this world. The Muslim loves death and seeks Martyrdom.” So declared an Islamic clergyman in Jerusalem just...
Doctors Shrugging
Doctors should demand to work on their own terms and recognize they have a right to trade their services voluntarily in exchange for what the market will bear.
Portland’s Metro Fraud
The Federal Highway Administration has apparently reached its limit with Portland’s fantasy transportation planning. In comments filed recently on Metro’s so-called “Regional Transportation Plan”, the federal government noted that,...
Big, Big Government
Two weeks ago, U.S. drug agents launched raids on 11 medical-marijuana centers in Los Angeles County. The U.S. attorney’s office says they violated the laws against cultivation and distribution of marijuana. Whatever happened to America’s federal system,...
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