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.

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 mind that Rice is...

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...

Blame Hezbollah and Iran for Death of Qana Children

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

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 over the last...

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...

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 bucks for it, then this law...

Then and Now

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 the war, he became a...

Pacifists versus Peace

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. "Peace"...

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 world has ever...

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 program, one can be...

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 Palestinians and...

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 achieve...

A “Cycle” of Nonsense

A “Cycle” of Nonsense

Now that Israel has responded to rocket attacks and the abduction of its soldiers by terrorists by making military strikes into areas controlled by those terrorists, much of our media are deploring another "cycle of violence" in the Middle East. For reasons unknown,...

Israel: No Longer a Paper Tiger?

The blame for the current fighting falls entirely on Israel's enemies, who deploy inhuman methods in the service of barbaric goals. While I wish the armed forces of Israel every success against the terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon and hope they inflict a maximum defeat...

“Saving” What From Whom?

“Saving” What From Whom?

When conservationists talk about "saving" this and "protecting" that, a logical question might be: Saving it from whom? Protecting it from whom? And why should the government force what you want on someone else who obviously wants something different, or there would...

Why Peace Eludes the Middle East

Why does peace so elude the Middle East? A recent MSNBC.com news report provides the answer: "Hezbollah [whose attacks on Israel triggered Israel's recent retaliation in Lebanon] is an Iranian-backed militant Shiite faction which has a free hand in southern Lebanon...

The Pretense of Knowledge

One of the great contributions of Nobel Laureate economist Friedrich Hayek was to admonish us to recognize the insurmountable limits to human knowledge. Why? Not even the brightest minds, and surely not the U.S. Congress, can ever have the knowledge to shape an...

A Victory for the Rule of Law

The Florida Supreme Court has just upheld an appellate court decision to throw out a $145 billion verdict in the case of Engle vs. Liggett Group. While the decision is being hailed as a major victory for tobacco companies, it is far more than that. The court...

Back From Vacation

Back From Vacation

There is nothing like returning home to recover from a vacation. They say traveling is broadening and that has certainly been my experience. My waistline broadens by about an inch a week when I am traveling. The most dangerous mode of travel is the automobile. Every...

Bully Boy Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

Bully Boy Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

A special issue of Time magazine celebrates the historic career of Theodore Roosevelt and the implications of his presidency for the development of American society. In the phony familiarity of our times, where you call people by their first names when you have never...

Is Patriotism Obsolete?

Is Patriotism Obsolete?

On the eve of a holiday that used to stir patriotic emotions -- the Fourth of July -- it has been painful to see examples of how little remains of that glue that holds a society together. Perhaps the worst of these signs of national disintegration was the New York...

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