Bradley Doucet

October 14, 2009—Is it just a coincidence that celebrity documentarian Michael Moore’s latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, hit theaters the same week as the comedy The Invention of Lying? No, Moore did not invent lying. In fact, he’s pretty careful to avoid outright, overt, spoken falsehoods in his films. But he does regularly bend the truth to the point of breaking. He lies with misleading images and juxtapositions and with warped chronology. He lies by omission and implication. 

August 28, 2009--A few days before the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), better known as the “Cash for Clunkers” program, was brought to an end on Monday, August 24, President Obama said that it had been “successful beyond anyone’s imagination.” With rebates of either $3,500 or $4,500 up for grabs, approximately 700,000 gas guzzler

March 6, 2009 - There is little good news for free market enthusiasts in President Obama’s first budget, unveiled last week. One of the exceptions is his proposal to rein in farm subsidies by cutting off one type of payment to farms with sales over $500,000 per year. The President actually deserves some credit for following through on this laudable campaign promise, and I certainly hope he succeeds in facing down the opposition. 

May 10, 2009—Let me say right from the start that I like the Star Trek franchise. I don’t spend my free time learning to speak Klingon—no offence to those who do—but I was excited to see the new film. I particularly like the optimism of the Star Trek vision of the future. It is post-racial instead of post-apocalyptic. It celebrates science and exploration, and is far more optimistic about the prospects for artificial intelligence than, say, the Terminator franchise, which also has an installment coming out this month.

February 2, 2009 – One of the things economists across the political spectrum agree on is that protectionism is bad. It is clearly bad for foreign companies being excluded from domestic markets, but it is also bad for domestic companies using foreign inputs, and bad too for domestic consumers who must pay more for goods and services. Bad for everyone, in short, except the specific domestic industries targeted for special privileges. Oh, and the politicians who cater to those industries and can expect votes and contributions in return.

September 23, 2009—Something only rarely addressed during the acrimonious debate on health care is why we take such poor care of our health. Many of us in the developed world eat too much, smoke too much, or drink too much. Combine that with a tendency to sleep and exercise too little, and you have a partial explanation of rising health care costs.

July 24, 2009—The United States of America, a nation that was founded on principled individualism, seems poised to expand government intervention into the health care sector. A rowdy debate has been joined in newspapers across the country: one side condemns the failure of the free market to provide Americans with affordable care, while the other warns against Canadian-style waiting lists and doctor shortages.

July 17, 2009 -- Forty years ago this week, on July 16, 1969, at 9:32 a.m. EDT, Apollo 11 blasted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. Four and a half days later, on July 20, at 10:56 p.m. EDT, a man stepped onto the surface of the moon for the first time. What had once seemed impossible had been proven to be merely incredibly difficult, as human ingenuity and courage leapt over yet another historic hurdle. 

March 19, 2009 - Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty last Thursday, March 12, to running a massive Ponzi scheme that swindled investors out of some $65 billion. He seems likely to spend the rest of his life in jail. Some have suggested the Ponzi scheme should be renamed “the Madoff scheme” in honor of his audacious crime. In fact, it should instead be renamed “the Roosevelt scheme” because compared to FDR, Madoff was an amateur. Yes, the biggest Ponzi scheme of them all was started by the former American president, and it is perfectly legal.

February 11, 2009 - The press has made much of the announced closing of the military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But what about the rest of the island, still ruled by the Castro regime that has ground the nation of 11 million beneath its boot heels for 50 years now? Why do the Cuban people suffer so? The short answer is: they suffer because they live under a communist regime that has largely outlawed free enterprise, not to mention the free movement of people and the freedoms of speech, assembly, and the press.