Editor's Desk

For this issue, I am wearing both the publisher’s and editor’s hat, while Robert Bidinotto works on some special projects for future issues of the magazine.

The current issue leads off with my own piece on the hot topic of immigration. America was a country founded by immigrants who sought economic opportunity and the freedom to run their lives as they saw fit. Today’s immigrants, including both legal and illegal ones, still come for those reasons. Unfortunately, the federal government’s immigration policies have failed to provide easy and legal entry for honest immigrants to United States, while screening out possible criminals and terrorists. Further, the welfare state seduces immigrants with handouts that impoverish both their work ethic and the taxpayers’ bank accounts.

I argue that the moral thing for the poor people in economically restricted countries to do is flee to a land of opportunity like America. The moral thing for American policymakers to do is set up a system that welcomes them. And for those here illegally, the price to stay should be to forgo all welfare benefits—Social Security, Medicare, you name it—but be allowed to put their own money tax-free in private retirement, medical, and other plans. Who knows? Some day our government may extend such a deal to the rest of us as well!

Speaking of foreigners, this issue also features an interview with Jaroslav Romanchuk, an activist in the former Soviet republic of Belarus, which is often called the last dictatorship in Europe. Jaroslav himself faces intimidation from his country’s regime, yet he fights not only on the political front but, more importantly, on the philosophical front. He spreads the ideas of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, as well as the principles of other thinkers who advocate free markets and limited government. Don’t miss this interview with a brave, intelligent, and fascinating man.

Robert Jones, TNI entertainment editor, offers reviews of two DVDs that are hitting a Blockbuster near you. The first is United 93. This is the story of the truly heroic passengers aboard the fourth plane hijacked by Islamist terrorists on September 11, 2001. By making cell phone calls to loved ones, the passengers learned what had happened at the World Trade Center and understood what would likely happen to them and their plane. So they fought back, losing their lives in the process but stopping the destruction of the White House or Capitol building and demonstrating the strength of American values.

Jones also looks at The World’s Fastest Indian, the title of which refers not to a fleet-footed Native American or a speedy citizen of the Asian subcontinent but rather to an Indian Scout motorcycle. The film tells the true story of New Zealander Burt Munro (played by Anthony Hopkins), who, though pushing seventy, makes his way to America to fulfill his dream of breaking speed records with his beloved bike. It’s a moving profile of an unusual person, whose eye-on-the-prize efforts manifested the individualist ethos.

Anthony Mirvish offers us a review of Michael R. LeGault’s book Think!: Why Crucial Decisions Can’t Be Made in the Blink of an Eye. This book is an answer to Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller Blink, which defends the practice of making major decisions quickly, based only on intuition, emotion, and other workings of the subconscious. Since we assume all our readers plan to use their own brains in the future, they can start by using them to read this article and learning how to employ those brains better.

Finally, on the Soliloquy page, I offer some closing thoughts on immigration, globalization, and the philosophy that informs them.