POLITICS

When Veterans Betray the Chain of Command

The chain of command isn’t just military protocol—it’s the constitutional architecture that keeps American democracy from sliding into chaos. Six Democratic members of Congress just attacked it.

How About Economic Progress Day?

How About Economic Progress Day?

Last Sunday was marked by an orgy of celebrations of Earth Day, the worldwide annual event intended to "to spark a revolution against environmental abuse." Even the Bush administration had an Earth Day website, which stated, "Earth Day and every day is a time to act...

Health Care Is a Business–or Should Be

Health Care Is a Business–or Should Be

Ultimately all health care is paid for by business activity. Business provides the wages, the return on investment, the insurance, the taxes that pay directly for health care, and the insurance and taxes that fund government programs. When the government manages to...

Exploiting Ignorance

So many Americans graduate high school and college having learned what to think as opposed to acquiring the tools of critical, independent thinking. Likewise, they have learned little about our nation's history. As such, they fall prey to the rhetoric of political...

The Edifice Complex

The Edifice Complex

Why do we let politicians name buildings after each other? I understand building monuments to honor leaders like Washington and Jefferson. But monuments to current members of Congress? Haven't we lowered the bar too far? Today all a congressman has to do to get his...

Phony Science and Public Policy

The public has become increasingly aware that the science behind manmade global warming is a fraud. But maybe Americans like bogus science in pursuit of certain public policy objectives. Let's look at it. Many Americans find tobacco smoke to be a nuisance. Some find...

Springtime for Taxes

Springtime for Taxes

Spring is here, but you may have been too busy filling out tax forms to enjoy it. The unpaid job of gathering W-2 and 1099s, sorting through receipts, and tabulating deductions, credits, and exemptions takes a lot of time. Americans spent 6.4 billion hours complying...

Neither Liberals nor Conservatives Support Our Troops

Supporters and opponents of President Bush's Iraq War are clashing in a furious debate over who truly supports our troops. The President's critics say they are supporting our troops by setting a timetable to bring them home from an "unnecessary" war. Supporters of the...

Worry About the Right Things

Worry About the Right Things

For the past two weeks I've written about how the media -- part of the Fear Industrial Complex -- profit by scaring us to death about things that rarely happen, like terrorism, child abductions, and shark attacks. We do it because we get caught up in the excitement of...

The Shame of Higher Education

Many of our nation's colleges and universities have become cesspools of indoctrination, intolerance, academic dishonesty and the new racism. In a March 1991 speech, Yale President Benno Schmidt warned, "The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society...

In Defense of Income Inequality

The issue of income inequality reveals one of the ugliest aspects of today's culture. The ugliness stems not from the existence of income inequality--but from the motives of those who denounce it. Income inequality used to be a rabble-rousing issue of the left. Now it...

Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley

Imagine opening tomorrow's newspaper and reading this: "Citing all-too-frequent child abuse and neglect, Congress has proposed the Parenting Reform Act. Under the proposed law, all parents must swear that they have not 'caused unreasonable physical harm or danger' to...

Global Warming Heresy

Most climatologists agree that the earth's temperature has increased about a degree over the last century. The debate is how much of it is due to mankind's activity. Britain's Channel 4 television has just produced "The Great Global Warming Swindle," a documentary...

What to Do About High Gasoline Prices

In response to recent rises in gas prices, we are once again hearing calls 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 of gasoline, up or down, are...

Hazardous Safety Regulation

Hazardous Safety Regulation

Whenever someone is hurt in an accident, people say, "There ought to be a law!" Politicians rush to oblige them and then take credit for all the lives they saved. But shouldn't they also accept blame for the lives lost because of those laws? Lives lost? Yes. A joint...

Regrets for Slavery

Both chambers of the Commonwealth of Virginia's General Assembly passed a resolution saying government-sanctioned slavery "ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation's history; and . . . the...

The Fear Industrial Complex

The Fear Industrial Complex

We can scare ourselves stupid. Consider vaccines. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the mercury in them has "poisoned an entire generation! It's causing IQ loss, mental retardation, speech delay, language delay, ADD, hyperactivity!" The news media love this kind of story....

Take a Stand for the Rights of Physicians

Take a Stand for the Rights of Physicians

While Governor Schwarzenegger and California legislators are busy putting forward proposals to socialize health care, one element is profoundly missing: none of these politicians know or care what physicians think of the proposals. It should have occurred to them that...

Democracy or Liberty

Does democracy really deserve the praise it receives? According to Webster's Dictionary, democracy is defined as "government by the people; especially: rule of the majority." What's so great about majority rule? Let's look at majority rule, as a decision-making tool,...

Stocks Look Cheap Historically, But They May Get Cheaper

With stocks at new highs, are prices too high for the value-minded investor to pay? I say no -- although if you are a value-minded trader, the answer may be yes. The way I look at stock valuations is by comparing consensus forward earnings to current long-term...

No Drug Price Controls

No Drug Price Controls

The Democrats who now control Congress want to change President Bush's Medicare drug benefit to require government officials to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. Under the current program, competing insurance companies cut the deals and offer...

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