I just finished teaching an undergraduate university class on the Ancient Near East: 15 weeks on Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. I read as many original documents and modern histories--and looked at as much art--as I had time to do. I became intrigued by the many...
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
Preserving a Vision–at the Expense of the Facts
Despite the warm glow of self-satisfaction that the liberal vision confers on liberals, ugly facts keep intruding to undermine that vision. Some liberals eventually jump ship and defect to conservatism when the facts keep piling up too high to ignore.* This takes...
The “Trickle Down” Left: Preserving a Vision
The New York Times of May 21 featured estimates of how much revenue the federal government is losing as a result of tax cuts, more than $50 billion over a five-year period. Meanwhile, a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal reported the government as receiving...
The “Progressive Era”: Preserving a Vision
In Shelby Steele's new book, "White Guilt," he mentions an encounter with a white liberal who fiercely defended the welfare state programs and policies of the 1960s. "Damn it, we saved this country!" he all but shouted. "This country was about to blow up. There were...
“Price-Gouging,” Opportunity Costs, and the Economics of Prices
Here's what one reader wrote: "Williams, I can understand how the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and Middle East political uncertainty can jack up gasoline prices. But it's price-gouging for the oil companies to raise the price of all the gasoline already bought and...
“Gloom and Doom” Media Hype: Preserving a Vision
Conservatives who point out the declining audience for the big television network newscasts, and declining public trust of the media in general, often under-estimate how much clout the liberal media still have. For example, while the economy has had near-record highs...
Bush and Congress Should Lift Environmental Restrictions on Energy Production
With American consumers currently paying the highest gasoline prices in recent history, and after another winter of high heating costs, many Americans are properly concerned about America's energy future. Predictably, many politicians and commentators blame the...
The Sorry State of Our Union
There is simply no way for a Congressman to read and understand the torrent of legislation that is proposed in every session of Congress. It is simply too vast.
A Latticework of Mental Models
Excerpt from Chapter I of "Investing: The Last Liberal Art" by Robert G. Hagstrom In April 1994, at the Marshall School of Business of the University of Southern California, students in Dr. Guilford Babcock's Student Investment Seminar got a rare treat, a powerful...
The Society for Military History: A Report from the Front
I just returned from the national conference of the Society for Military History (SMH), held at Kansas State University. I presented a paper on the military campaigns of the Roman Emperor Aurelian, arguing that his use of overwhelming force had resulted in a bloodless...
Memorial Day: What We Owe Our Soldiers
Every Memorial Day, we pay tribute to the American men and women who have died in combat. With speeches and solemn ceremonies, we recognize their courage and valor. But one fact goes unacknowledged in our Memorial Day tributes: all too many of our soldiers have died...
Seattle Public Schools Smear The Antidote for Racism
According to the Seattle Public Schools, if you're an individualist, you're a racist. On a web page that lists various forms and definitions of racism, the school system defines "Cultural Racism" as: Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value...
Washington’s Pro-Hamas Foreign Policy
America's policy of backing "land for peace" deals in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was supposed to stop Palestinian terrorism and culminate in a Palestinian state coexisting with Israel "side by side in peace and security." But after years of Israeli concessions,...
The Da Vinci Code: Catholic Leaders Need to Show a Little Respect for Freedom
This summer's blockbuster movie "The Da Vinci Code" is set to hit the big screen surrounded by controversy. Some Catholic leaders have asked their faithful to speak out against the film and to boycott it. Some bishops, however, take it even further than that....
The Little Dictators
America is the land in which productive individuals were largely set free of the coercive power of the government. The result was the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen. But, over the past two generations, our freedom has been subordinated, in myriad ways,...
The Solution to Ilegal Immigration
I didn't hear the President's immigration speech, but I must comment on one paragraph I've read: "We're a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We're also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in...
Global Warming: The Other Side of the Story
"Oceans lash our coasts. Deserts Burn. The sky provides no shelter. Turmoil of Biblical proportions threatens not just our weather but life itself. Global Warming is upon us." Those words aren't from the preview trailer of the silly, overblown, over dramatic film,...
Tribute to Iran
The High Muckety-Muck (HMM) of Iran sent President Bush an 18 page letter this week, doubtless with very tiny writing, in which he wrote: Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have...
The Biggest Scandal in the Duke University Rape Case
The worst thing said in the case involving rape charges against Duke University students was not said by either the prosecutor or the defense attorneys, or even by any of the accusers or the accused. It was said by a student at North Carolina Central University, a...
Justice Delayed for the Lacrosse Players in the Duke University Rape Case
If there is a smoking gun in the Duke University rape case, it is not about the stripper who made the charges or the lacrosse players who have been accused. The smoking gun is the decision of District Attorney Michael Nifong to postpone a trial until the spring of...
The Terrorists’ Motivation: Islam
The continued attacks by Islamic terrorists against the West have led many to ask, what is the motivation of the terrorists? Commentators are eager to offer a bevy of pseudo-explanations--poverty, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc.--while ignoring the motivation...
The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown's novel of Catholic Church intrique and Christian mystery has been turned into a major hollywood production starring Tom Hanks among others set for release this month.While the plot of the story, that the catholic church covered up the bloodline of Jesus and...
The Missed Debate Over ‘Price-Gouging’
Investor's Business Daily recently ran an interesting editorial on the price-gouging legislation before Congress. The following is an excerpt: To an economist, there's no such thing as "gouging" in a market that is free and efficient, and the oil and oil-product...
The Economics of Caring vs. Uncaring
George Orwell admonished, "Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious." That's what I want to do -- talk about the obvious, starting with the question: What human motivation leads to the most wonderful things getting done? How about...
Thinking About Gas Prices
Amid all the hysteria among politicians and in the media over rising gasoline prices, and all the outraged indignation about oil company profits and their executives' high pay and lavish perks, has anybody bothered to even estimate how much effect any of this actually...
Tabloid TV “Justice”
Whether Zacarias Moussaoui received the death penalty or life imprisonment was never a big issue for me. What was appalling, however, was the way the penalty phase of his trial was conducted. First, there was the parade of witnesses, including former New York Mayor...
The So-Called Right to Silence Others
It seems a Roman Catholic cardinal is a little envious that Islam gets to squelch those who offend its tenets. In the latest Vatican broadside against "The Da Vinci Code," a leading cardinal says Christians should respond to the book and film with legal action because...
Parent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children
P.E.T. will be described in terms familiar to everyone, not in technical jargon. Some parents may find themselves initially disagreeing with some of these concepts, but very few will find themselves not understanding them. Since readers will not be able to express...
Anti-‘Price-Gouging’ Regulation
With gasoline prices across the nation at $3 a gallon, one knows that American oil companies are easy targets for every regulator (and every potential regulator) in town. And when an oil-man-turned-president blames Americans for having an "energy addiction," it is...
Disappearing Manufacturing Jobs
According to some pundits and political hustlers, free trade has led to a loss of "good manufacturing jobs." Let's look at it, but before doing so, let's first see whether we should work ourselves into a tizzy over other job losses. In 1900, 41 percent of the U.S....
The Supreme Court Opinions of Justice Clarence Thomas
Anyone who takes the trouble to read the Supreme Court opinions of Justice Clarence Thomas will see a very different, and much more intellectually formidable, mind at work than what they might expect from reading media attempts to denigrate Justice Thomas. A very...
Freedom vs. Unlimited Majority Rule
America's foreign policy has led to a bizarre contradiction. President Bush claims to be pursuing freedom in the world, so that Americans will be safer. Yet this campaign's results--a more zealous proponent of terrorism in the Palestinian Authority, and the prospect...