Bush's disastrous foreign policy--especially the Iraq fiasco--has led many to conclude that diplomatic "engagement" is our best hope for stopping Iran's nuclear program. But while Bush's policy is a failure, engagement is not the solution. Bush's "moralistic"...
POLITICS
Health Care’s A Mess–So What’s the Solution?
They say health care in the United States is outrageously expensive because of a failure of the free market. But we don't have a free market in health care. States throughout the country regulate private health insurance, and have turned it into a one-size-fits-all...
Bill Gates Needs an Economic Course on Free-Markets
Dropping out of college didn't stop Bill Gates from making tons of money, but it kept him from classes where he might have learned about the beauty of spontaneous market processes. Never mind. I forgot that he attended Harvard. He might not have learned about markets...
The Sad Case of the Spotted Owl
Environmentalists are quick to lecture the rest of us about the ways of nature. Don't clean the dead trees off the forest floor, it's natural. Cattle and horses on the range aren't native, so let the grizzles and wolves devour them, it's natural. Man isn't part of the...
Catastrophic Global Warming and its Evil Twin ‘Climate Change’ Predictions Wrong on Both Counts
Global warming alarmists are a clever bunch. They have very carefully changed the issue from "global warming" to "climate change." Now any change in weather, be it mild winters or cool summers can be attributed to "climate change." Whatever the weather, the news is...
Socialized Medicine Is Wrong For Colorado
The Colorado Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform recently selected four proposals for health care reform for eventual consideration by the state legislature. Although they differ in their details, these differences are dwarfed by their fundamental similarity...
FDA: Friend or Foe?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is charged with ensuring that only safe and effective drugs are marketed. Such a task is highly complex and fraught with difficulties. Consumers, the ostensible beneficiaries, should examine and question the incentive...
The Writing Process: One Step at a Time
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (or NAEP), the average high school student is an incompetent writer. To evaluate their writing ability, testers asked high school juniors to write a paragraph based on notes they were given about a haunted...
The Failure of Field Trips, Part 2
In my recent article "The Failure of Field Trips," I explained what is wrong with traditional school outings. The typical field trip is irrelevant to the students' education, either because they have been unprepared to appreciate it by their schooling (e.g., City Hall...
Creating Effective Incentives
What should our response be if terrorists set off a nuclear explosion, or some other weapon of mass destruction, in one of our cities? I put this question to Professor Victor Hanson, senior research fellow at Stanford University's prestigious Hoover Institution, who...
The Double “Thank-You” Moment
Some people hate me because I defend free markets. Once someone accosted me on a New York City street and said, "I hope you die soon." Why the hostility to commerce? What could be more benign than the freedom to trade with whomever you wish? I suspect ignorance about...
Who Is Gouging Whom?
Last Wednesday the House of Representatives passed legislation instituting penalties of up to $150 million for companies and up to $2 million and 10 years' imprisonment for individuals found guilty of gasoline "price gouging." But the real gouger driving up gasoline...
What to Do About Rising Gas Prices
With gasoline prices at their highest point in recent years, the knee-jerk response of many is to call for the government to "do something" to force prices lower. But no matter what the price of gasoline is, such calls are wrong. All market fluctuations in the price...
Fighting Climate Change, Gun Control and Income Tax Laws
Last week, Japan pledged $100 million in grants to fight global climate change. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the world's major leader in the struggle against climate change. The World Conservation Union has recently recognized the work...
The Tax-Cut Myth
The federal government keeps growing, as I pointed out last week, but the Bush administration has cut tax rates a few times since 2001. How can that be? The answer is simple: deficit spending. Some Republicans argue that deficits don't matter; that if you cut taxes,...
The Public Trough Is Bigger Than Ever
Bill Clinton once declared, "The era of big government is over." Both Republicans and Democrats applauded. What a joke. Government grew under Clinton, and grew even faster under his successor. Government is so big today that more than half the population gets a major...
The Temperamental Minimum Wage
The first fundamental law of demand postulates that the lower the price of something, the more will be demanded, and the higher the price, the less will be demanded. To my knowledge, there are no known exceptions to the law of demand. That was until last fall when 650...
Crass and Class at George Mason University
The lecture by Dr. John Lewis last month on Islamic totalitarianism at George Mason University was one of the most surreal public experiences I have witnessed in all my years as an activist and advocate. It evidenced in no uncertain terms that rationality and common...
The Global Warming Debate
With great fanfare, in March, Al Gore took Capitol Hill like a conquering hero as he testified on Global Warming before both houses of Congress. Fresh from conquests at the Academy Awards where his adoring Hollywood elites showered him with coveted golden statues for...
Jamestown: Birthplace of America’s Distinctive, Secular Ideal
On May 14, America will commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. The occasion provides us with an opportunity to understand and celebrate the distinctive, secular ideal underlying America's freedom and prosperity. Although...
The HMS Cornwall and The Rules of Engagement
The March 23 Iranian capture of 15 British Royal Navy sailors should raise a number of questions. The sailors were part of the crew of HMS Cornwall, a state-of-the-art frigate bristling with high-tech surveillance devices and advanced weaponry. The sailors, dispatched...
The Failure of Field Trips, Part 1
Many educators stress the importance of field trips--opportunities to get students out of their desks and away from their books, and to give them direct, vivid, sensory experience with the world around them. Reflecting on my own education, these excursions off campus...
The Religious Right’s Culture of Living Death
Applauding the Supreme Court's decision to uphold a ban on so-called partial birth abortions, President Bush called it a victory for "building a culture of life in America." The idea of a "culture of life" has been a rallying cry for religious conservatives in their...
Murder at Virginia Polytechnic Institute
The 32 murders at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI) shocked the nation, but what are some of the steps that can be taken to reduce the probability that such a massacre will happen again? A large portion of the blame can be laid at the feet of the VPI administration...
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