There’s so much confusion and emotionalism about discrimination that I thought I’d take a stab at a dispassionate analysis. Discrimination is simply the act of choice. When we choose Bordeaux wine, we discriminate against Burgundy wine. When I married Mrs....
POLITICS
The New Nomenklatura
One of the bitter ironies of the 20th century was that communism, which began as an egalitarian doctrine accusing capitalism of selfishness and calloused sacrifices of others, became in power a system whose callousness toward others made the “sins” of...
How to Solve America’s Terrorism Problem in 5 Easy Steps
Here is how America could solve her terrorism problem in 5 easy steps: 1. Stop sacrificing American soldiers to bring “freedom” to savages in Iraq. Pull our soldiers out of that hell hole, and let the savages have their civil war. ( Iraq is not and never...
An Open Letter to CEOs: Defend the Profit Motive–or Perish
Dear CEO: As a grateful customer of America’s productive businesses–as someone who knows that his well-being depends on yours–I implore you to stop apologizing to your attackers. Stop pledging to “reform,” to become “better...
Will The West Defend Itself?
Does the United States have the power to eliminate terrorists and the states that support them? In terms of capacity, as opposed to will, the answer is a clear yes. Think about it. Currently, the U.S. has an arsenal of 18 Ohio class submarines. Just one submarine is...
Point of No Return?
It is hard to think of a time when a nation — and a whole civilization — has drifted more futilely toward a bigger catastrophe than that looming over the United States and western civilization today. Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran and North Korea...
A Land Fit for Criminals, Part II
Do higher rates of imprisonment reduce crime? Is crime a result of poverty, unemployment, and the like? Are alternatives to incarceration more effective in preventing criminals from repeating their crimes? Some people would hesitate to try to answer any of these...
A Land Fit for Criminals, Part I
The general mindset of the political left is similar from country to country and even from century to century. The softness toward dangerous criminals found in such 18th century writers as William Godwin and Condorcet has its echo today among those who hold protest...
Are Academic Elites Communists?
Grove City College publishes an excellent newsletter titled “Visions and Values.” Its July 2006 edition features an interview with Dr. Richard Pipes, acclaimed Russian historian and Harvard University professor of Sovietology. The interview was conducted...
Will Cease-Fires Never Cease?
How many cease-fires have there been in the Middle East — or is the number too large to remember? Over the past half century, there must have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than in the rest of the world combined. What will this latest cease-fire do? It...
Israel’s Government Deserves Moral Condemnation
The Government of Israel deserves moral condemnation for its overall response to Hezbollah. The primary purpose and moral obligation of any legitimate government is to protect the lives and rights of its own citizens. Hezbollah, a military wing of the Islamic...
Islamic Totalitarianism: Our Carry-On Luggage Is Not the Real Problem
If termites are weakening a home’s foundation, what do we do? We call the exterminator and eliminate the problem. If armed robbers are at our doors trying to break their way in, what do we do? We defend ourselves to the best of our abilities until the...
Studies Prove: Part II
My late mentor, Nobel Prize-winning economist George Stigler, used to say that it could be very instructive to spend a few hours in a library checking up on studies that had been cited. When I began doing that, I found it not only instructive but disillusioning. A...
The Minimum Wage Vision
There are decent people, without a selfish hidden agenda, who support increases in minimum wages as a means to help low-skilled workers, and there are other decent people, with the identical goal, who strongly oppose increases in the minimum wage. So the question is:...
Studies Prove: Part I
Whenever I hear the phrase “studies prove” this or that, it makes me think back to the beginning of my career as an economist at the Labor Department in Washington. Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg was scheduled to appear before Congress to argue in...
A Glimmer of Hope: The Unusual Backlash Against Minimum Wage
It was a common political move when Chicago’s city council voted recently to impose a $10 an hour minimum wage on big-box retailers. There is nothing that politicians like better than handing out benefits to be paid for by someone else. What was uncommon was the...
Israel’s “Obligation” to the U.N.
Secretary of State Rice has stated that Israel has an “obligation” to respond to the U.N.’s demand for a cease-fire in Lebanon. Since when does any sovereign government have an obligation to reply or have anything at all to do with the U.N.? Keep in...
Letters to the Editor: August 2006
Lebanese Government Has No Legitimacy Dear Editor: President Bush is urging Israel to preserve the fragile government of Lebanon, which was recently chosen in democratic elections supported by Bush himself. But Israel should do exactly the opposite. Hezbollah, the...
Altruism: The Morality of Suffering and Death (Exhibit 347R: Organ Donation)
The widespread acceptance of altruism (the fallacious notion that being moral consists in self-sacrificially serving others) causes continuous human suffering and death. Yet another example of this fact is illustrated in a recent article by Dr. Sally Satel (a resident...
“The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie” and Other College Stupidity
Colleges and universities will start their fall semester soon. You might be interested in what parents’ and taxpayers’ money is going for at far too many “institutions of higher learning.” At Occidental College in Los Angeles, a mandatory...
Blame Hezbollah and Iran for Death of Qana Children
Responsibility for the tragic deaths of scores of Lebanese women and children in Qana, Lebanon falls primarily on Hezbollah and its backers, Syria and Iran, not on Israel. To initiate a war against Israel and then use children as shields is so evil and disgusting that...
Mandatory Health Insurance: Health Care by Force
When the United States of America got its start, the general idea was that individuals should be left free to carve out their own lives free of government interference, based on the principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Gradually...
Israel at War: Problems and Fallacies
Now that Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian people (who elected Hamas), the people of southern Lebanon (who sit idly by as a group of armed thugs turn their country into a base of operations), Syria, and Iran have showed their hands and begun a shooting war with Israel...
United Nations is Guilty for the Death of its Observers
Responsibility for the death of four United Nations observers in Lebanon falls primarily on Kofi Annan and the UN–not Israel. Leaving aside the obvious question as to why these observers remained in the middle of a battle area, a totally irresponsible decision,...
Creating Unemployment
Her’s a fantastic idea that will make everybody richer. Let’s pass a law setting a minimum price on used cars. How about, say, $15,000? If you’ve got an old beater you want to sell, and you were worried that you’d only get a couple thousand...
Truly Disgusting: Internet Gambling Prohibition Act of 1999
The House of Representatives voted 245 to 159 to pass the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act of 1999. Because of a rule requiring two-thirds approval, the measure didn’t pass. Its sponsor, Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., plans to introduce it again when only a majority is...
Then and Now
Those of us old enough to remember World War II face many painful reminders of how things have changed in Americans’ behavior during a war. Back then, the president’s defeated opponent in the 1940 election — Wendell Wilkie — not only supported...
Pacifists versus Peace
One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts....
Hands Off My Net
The S&P 500 has more than doubled over the last 10 years — a decade in which the Internet came out of nowhere, and established itself as the technology platform of the new global economy. The Internet has been the greatest engine of economic growth the...
Western Leaders Provide Comedy to Iran’s Dictators
When the mullahs of the Islamic dictatorship of Iran are not chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” or not issuing money, weapons and orders to their global terrorist networks, or not monitoring the progress of their nuclear weapons...
The Indispensable Condition of Peace in the Middle East
As Israeli soldiers reenter Gaza and bomb Lebanon, and Israeli citizens seek shelter from Hezbollah’s missiles, the world despairingly wonders whether peace between Israel and its neighbors can ever take root. It can–but only if America reverses course. To...
Appeasing a Mortal Enemy: The U.S.-Israeli Suicide Pact
The Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah axis is fully responsible for initiating the war on Israel, but the Islamists’ aggression is the logical product of U.S.-Israeli policy. The longstanding commitment of Israel and America to “diplomatic engagement” with...
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