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
The debate over Social Security reform so far has centered on the concern that, as the number of retirees balloons, the program won't be able to pay its promised benefits. That certainly is a crisis that must be addressed. But let's say, for argument's sake, that...
In Russia these days, a lot of old is new again. In fact, the Russian oil and gas sector's new paradigm can be summarized in two words: "state domination." The free market has been abandoned. For example, last December the tax authorities bankrupted YUKOS, a major oil...
Since the Federal Food and Drug Act came into law in 1906, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has had a century to develop their methodology for insuring drug safety. After expanding to an annual budget of $1.5 billion and a staff of 10,000, they continue to seek...
Where can you make $2,000 a day, with no real effort? In San Mateo County, California. Before you start packing your bags to head there, you should know that the average homeowner in San Mateo County saw the value of his property increase by $2,000 a day over the past...
Some organized labor groups recently decided that the retirement security of their members was less important than their own short-term political goals. The AFL-CIO and some of its member unions declared that investment managers for their retirement funds should be...
If anything's likely to boost support for the flat tax, it's the annual nightmare of tax season. Imagine junking all the paperwork the current system requires and replacing it with two simple postcard-sized forms that tax income only once and at one low rate. Imagine...
There are extensive tracts of land, comparable to those in Europe, which are sparsely settled. The United States of America and the British dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and so on, are less heavily populated, in comparison with their...
As you raise a pen to sign your tax return this year, you will undoubtedly regret that the United States Treasury is taking so much of your income. You should also ask why so much of the income you have left is spent on health care and health insurance. The two...
Every year about this time, high school students get letters of admission -- or rejection -- from colleges around the country. The saddest part of this process is not their rejections but the assumption by some students that they were rejected because they just didn't...
Hundreds of readers responded to last week's column about airport security. These were letters from Americans who fit no terrorist profile -- airline pilots, mothers traveling with children, disabled people, elderly and other law-abiding Americans -- and yet were...
On Tuesday, President Bush had the most bizarre cabinet meeting any president is ever going to have. It was a meeting with an actual cabinet. A filing cabinet. A filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W. Va., to be precise. Strange? Yes. But then again this is a very...
The April 15 tax deadline provides taxpayers the opportunity to examine how their elected officials will spend their hard-earned tax dollars. Washington will spend $22,039 per household in 2005 -- the highest inflation-adjusted total since World War II, and $4,000...
"Hell no!" was Kofi Annan's bullish response when asked last week if he would resign over the oil-for-food scandal. The UN secretary-general's office was in full spin mode following the release of the eagerly awaited Volcker Interim Report on questions of conflict of...
Right after the November 1994 election, I wrote that "the way to tell how serious Republicans are about cutting federal spending is to watch
'One darned thing after another': That's how former Secretary of State Dean Acheson once defined foreign policy. The latest "darned thing" for the United States is Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez. For no apparent reason, the leftist strongman is arming...
While the Bush administration continues to push and celebrate significant successes for democracy in the Middle East, China is on an opposing mission in Asia, where it continues to block the spread of freedom. The most recent target of Chinese diplomatic pressure is...
Liberals may think of themselves as people who believe in certain principles but, if you observe their actual behavior, you are likely to discover that most liberals have a certain set of attitudes, rather than principles. Liberals may denounce "greed," for example,...
Sometimes something trivial gives you a clue about something serious. A tempest in a teapot has been stirred up about the zoning laws and New York's famed Plaza Hotel. By some fluke, half of the Plaza's ballroom is zoned for commercial use and the other half is zoned...
For most of my professional life, I've traveled frequently -- sometimes boarding a commercial flight two, three or four times a month for lucrative speaking engagements. Over the past three years, the frequency has fallen to an average of once or twice a year. The...
Wal-Mart is the world's largest business. Its $250 billion in annual sales makes it bigger than legendary giants like Exxon, General Motors, and IBM. How did Wal-Mart get so big? In a market economy, success goes to those businesses that best serve consumer needs....
As much as I enjoy most of the messages from readers, there is no way that I can answer more than a small fraction of them. The messages I don't reply to at all are those from obviously ignorant people who offer insults instead of arguments. However, a recent column...
"This is your eyewitness news team, reporting from the big, posh April Fools' Day party at the Dewdrop Inn out at Moot Point, overlooking Dyer Straits. Everybody who is anybody is here. "There's the karate expert Marshall Artz, timber heiress Lotta Wood, famous...
Religious conservatives are calling the death of Terri Schiavo a betrayal of "the sanctity of human life." We must, they say, replace our existing culture with a new "culture of life." "It should be our goal as a nation," proclaims President Bush, "to build a culture...
Here's my question to you: Should we be governed by good ideas? You say, "Williams, what do you mean?" Here's an example: I regularly bike for fun, cardiovascular fitness and, hopefully, for a longer, healthier life. In my opinion, that's a good idea. That being the...
Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub says the FEC has no interest in regulating political speech on the Internet. She opened a recent hearing by saying no one at the FEC has sought to manipulate it "as a vehicle for shutting down the right of any individual...
We have the military power; we have the moral right. The defense of our lives only requires that we properly identify our enemies and eliminate them.
The widely hailed diplomatic effort led by Britain, France and Germany is touted as a reasonable way to settle the dispute over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program without any losers. By enticing Iran to the negotiating table, we are told, the West can avoid a...
The new report by the Social Security trustees, claiming that Social Security will go broke in 2041, is bound to fuel the nationwide debate over Social Security. One side, led by President Bush, says the system is in crisis and must be saved via "partial...
Senators Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rick Santorum, R-Pa., both introduced proposals to increase the minimum wage from its current $5.15 an hour. Sen. Kennedy's proposal would have raised the minimum wage to $7.25 in three steps over 26 months, while Sen. Santorum's...
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Nolan Ryan's baseball career was so long that he struck out seven guys whose fathers he had also struck out. (Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonds, for example.) Why do some people use a fancy mathematical term like "parameters" when all...
In return for Iran's agreement to temporarily cease the work needed to produce a nuclear bomb, President Bush has agreed to allow Iran to buy civilian airplane parts, and to drop opposition to Iran's membership in the World Trade Organization. These concessions are...
Throughout the West, Muslims are making new and assertive demands, and in some cases challenging the very premises of European and North American life. How to respond? Here is a general rule: Offer full rights -- but turn down demands for special privileges. By way of...
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