While Americans struggle to comply with one of the world's most complicated tax codes, it's worth noting that about one-dozen nations have adopted simple and fair flat-tax systems.Hong Kong has had a flat tax for nearly 60 years, and has gone from being one of the...
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
Letters to the Editor: April 2006
Re: Pay Less, Drive More Dear Editor: The Bush Administration's new light truck fuel economy standards save record amounts of fuel, reform an outdated system, preserve vehicle choice, and increase safety. The fact is that in less than three years, this Administration...
How Israel Can Win
Since I argued in an earlier column that Israel can and must defeat the Palestinian Arabs, a barrage of responses have contested this thesis. Some were trivial (Ha'aretz published an article challenging my right to opine on such matters because I do not live in...
Is There a Federal Deficit?
Let's push back the frontiers of ignorance about the federal deficit. To simplify things, I'll use round numbers that are fairly close to the actual numbers. The nation's 2005 gross domestic product (GDP), what the American people produced, totaled $13 trillion. The...
From Small to Big Forebodings
This morning I heard that President Bush should not fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld because when one member of the cabinet goes there is a "blood in the water" effect in Washington that will demand that more heads role. This is not a reason for keeping...
Fidel Castro is a Communist
For fifty years the American left has promoted the image of Fidel Castro as a great humanitarian who has saved his people in a workers' paradise. Here's a fact: Fidel Castro is a communist. Period. Communists are not humanitarians. They are vile, brutal thugs who use...
Time to Fight the Real War
Four and a half years after September 11--which was supposed to awaken us to the threat of devastating attacks by state-sponsored terrorists--America is finally beginning to confront the world's largest and most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism: the Islamic...
South Park Sissies
So the reacted airing of "South Park" on Wednesday was no joke; Comedy Central did in fact refuse to broadcast Trey Parker and Matt Stone's representation of Mohammad "in light of recent world events." At the same time Comedy Central was reveling in South Park's...
Health Care on Tax Day: How Government Spending Damages Your Health
When you file your tax return on April 15, know that even more of your taxes will be eaten up by government spending on health care. You should also ask why so much of the income you have left is spent on health care and health insurance. The two questions are...
A Morality of Reason
Does morality depend upon religion? Most people believe it does, which is a major reason behind the appeal of the religious right. People believe that without faith in a supernatural authority, we can have no moral values--no moral absolutes, no black-and-white...
How Washington will spend your taxes in 2006
As the April 15 tax deadline edges closer, taxpayers frantically completing their 1040s may be wondering just what their hard-earned federal tax dollars pay for, anyway.Washington will spend $23,760 per household in 2006 -- the highest inflation-adjusted total since...
South Park Speaks
OK, so "Cartoon Wars Part II" of Comedy Central's "South Park" aired last night and I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out what was what. The broadcast seemingly never shows Muhammad, claiming that the scene that featured him was redacted by Comedy Central,...
Universal Healthcare Boondoggle
The Massachusetts law for universal healthcare is a boondoggle. Rather than admit that the problems with healthcare in America are the caused by the government's interference with the personal choices of its citizens, the Massachusetts proposal mandates that every...
Anaheim, a Free-Market Laboratory
The massive cost overruns on the aerial tram have been a source of much embarrassment to the Portland city council recently, but problems with the South Waterfront project go far beyond the tram. The city also has a major funding shortfall for other infrastructure...
Immigration Plus Welfare State Equal Police State
The implementation of the rights both of the immigrants and of the taxpayers requires the abolition of the Welfare State.
Pay Less, Drive More
Last Wednesday the Bush administration announced new fuel economy standards for light trucks and SUVs. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta asserted that the new regulations, which will affect vehicles sold from 2008 to 2011, will save 10.7 billion gallons of fuel...
The Islamist Threat To Civilization
In reacting to the Islamists’ ongoing cartoon Jihad, most commentators have focused on the issue of free speech. This is natural, and necessary, since eradication of free speech is the most immediate risk; and certainly without free speech there can be no defending...
Why Are CEOs Paid So Much?
The Coca Cola Co. has instituted a significant new plan for compensating its directors: they will not receive payment unless the company meets its financial targets. But even if other corporations adopted similar arrangements, it would do nothing to dispel the rampant...
The Transformation of “Jihad Jack” and John Walker Lindh
Like the 2002 case of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, the current case of Australian "Jihad Jack" Thomas--who was charged with being a terrorist "sleeper" agent, convicted of having received money from al-Qaeda and sentenced to five years imprisonment--raises...
Are Facts Obsolete?
What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the widespread habit of disregarding facts. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey put it this way: "Demagoguery beats data." People who urge us to rely on the United Nations, instead of acting...
U.N. Security Council’s Toothless Statement on Iran’s Nuclear Program
On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council issued a toothless statement urging Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program and threatening to take up the issue again in 30 days, after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delivers a report on Iran's...
Immigration Quotas vs. Individual Rights: The Moral and Practical Case for Open Immigration
This is a defense of phasing-in open immigration into the United States. Entry into the U.S. should ultimately be free for any foreigner, with the exception of criminals, would-be terrorists, and those carrying infectious diseases. (And note: I am defending freedom of...
America Bows to Islam
Europeans are all too well acquainted with the fear of criticizing Islam. To cite just a few of depressingly many examples: a painter, Rashid Ben Ali, is forced into hiding after one of his shows "featured satirical work critical of Islamic militant's violence"; a...
Canada’s Healthcare System is Bad Medicine
The failure of Canada's experiment with socialist medicine is readily apparent: long waiting lists and wait times for specialized services, conveyor-belt treatment for routine services, chronic shortages of family doctors and hospital beds, gross inefficiencies, slow...
U.S. Shouldn’t Back New Plan for U.N. Human Rights Panel
Franklin D. Roosevelt coined the term "United Nations" in 1942, when an alliance of democracies (with the help of the Soviet Union) was fighting the totalitarian Axis powers. FDR dreamed of a post-war world in which free people would help promote peace and make...
Israel’s Substitute for Victory: Managing Conflict Without Resolving It
As Israelis go to the polls, not one of the leading parties offers the option of winning the war against the Palestinian Arabs. It's a striking and dangerous lacuna. First, some background. Wars are won, the historical record shows, when one side feels compelled to...
Immigration: Pave Your Own Way
There are so many platitudes about immigration--some cloaked in sincerity, and others completely meaningless. The truth really isn't that complicated. The answer is not open immigration, or a closed society. The answer is a free society. A free society is one in which...
Rioting for Ineptitude in France
The students are rioting in Paris, again, and the streets of Dublin are quiet. The dissimilarity flows from the differences in the way the political-economic systems are run in France and Ireland. In France's overly-planned, overly-socialist economy, the unemployment...
Sudden Jihad Syndrome at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill
"Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers." I wrote those words days after September 11, 2001, and have been criticized for them ever since. But an...
Robert Fulford’s Confusions Over Capitalism
As long as people regard altruism as good, they will oppose or feel guilty about capitalism.
Some Thoughts on ‘Just War Theory’ vs. American Self-Defense
If there ever was an event worth two trips to see, it was The Objective Standard's inaugural lecture featuring Dr. Yaron Brook's on the "Just War Theory" vs. American Self-Defense (a lecture based on his now publicly-available article of the same title). Here's a...
Impeach Bush?
Should President Bush be impeached, as some Democrats in Congress are now reportedly considering? Absolutely not. Why not? Clinton lied and he got impeached; why shouldn't Bush? President Clinton committed perjury in a sexual harassment trial. The entire world knew of...
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