Politics & Culture
Top 10 Articles
William R Thomas
Women's Equality in the Military - It's Official
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has announced that the U.S. military will make its default policy one of equality for women. No general class of jobs, including combat-related positions, will be off-limits to female soldiers once a transition phase is completed. (Apparently, some case-by-case exclusions may continue.)
It's about time!
Solar Power versus Trees
I am a critic of subsidies for green technologies. I don't think it is at all certain how efficient technologies like solar and wind power will ever become. I certainly disagree with President Obama's view that we must all be forced to subsidize his favored environmentalist projects.
Washington State Votes for Liberty?
The ballot initiatives voted by Washington State voters in 2012 are the brightest light for increased liberty in the current election.
Voters in Washington State approved a super-majority requirement for future tax increases: now tax increases need a 2/3 majority in the legislature, or a majority of popular vote. This is an issue that has legs in Washington State as a similar previous initiatiive has faced court challenges. Hopefully, this will settle the issue and put real brakes on the growth of government.
Christian-Liberty Alliance RIP
Tea-party and pro-economic liberty advocates in the Republican Party supported the nomination of Richard Mourdouck in Indiana and Todd Akin in Missouri for the US Senate. Both lost ignominiously in the 2012 election. They didn't lose because they favored economic freedom or smaller government. They lost because of their contempt for reality and mystic views on rape and conception.
Why Liberals Should Like Ayn Rand
If you are liberal, you want people to be treated as people. You're against racism and against sexism. You are in favor of more immigration and against nativism.
If you are liberal, you think people should live to be happy; you think that a good community, a good company, or a good family helps its members to flourish.
The Individualist's Guide to Progressive Change
If socialism were a respectable affiliation, Progressives would probably call themselves “democratic socialists.”
Egypt's Democracy Activists Get What They Wished For
Okay, this is about the Egyptian "Election 2012," not the American one. But Egypt is learning a lesson that America would do well to remember.
Secular-leaning, educated, democracy activists succeeded in overthrowing Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship in Egypt last year. They wanted a free and democratic country. In the first round of presidential elections there this spring, they learned that freedom and democracy are not the same thing.
Crony Capitalism: it's all-American now!
"Crony capitalism." Wasn't that what caused the Asian financial melt-down of 1997? Wasn't that what we were all told?
Take a trip back in time. The U.S. stock market is booming. It's the '90s! But currencies are collapsing in Southeast Asia. Banks are failing. Unstable, corrupt, corporatist regimes in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia... they handed out benefits to too few cronies. They protected national champion firms. They manipulated their currencies to the breaking point. They were crony capitalists, and everyone knew it.
Myth: Ayn Rand Was a Conservative
Ayn Rand has been a major inspiration for the Tea Party movement, which has swept a new generation of Republicans and self-described conservatives into power. Rand herself is often called “right-wing.” And her most famous defender, Alan Greenspan, was a consultant to Republicans and was nominated to chair the Fed by President Reagan.
