May 2001 -- Last September, then-candidate George W. Bush promised "an orderly and timely withdrawal" of American ground forces from the Balkans. By contrast, defenders of the Clinton Balkan policy maintain that the United States must keep forces on the ground to demonstrate leadership. The administration's choice thus takes on a more-than-ordinary significance because the decision will constitute either an implicit criticism or an implicit endorsement of the way the Clinton administration conducted foreign policy. On both strategic and symbolic grounds, President Bush should bring the troops home. Strategically, their presence is not warranted. Symbolically, the Bush administration needs to signal a dramatic change in America's way of doing business in the world: a return to principled action in foreign policy and to the national interest as the overriding principle.
February 2001 -- "There is no right to do wrong." So said Alan Keyes used to say during his presidential campaign. Apparently, he either did not grasp or did not care that freedom implies the right to do wrong, inasmuch as a person permitted no option but to walk the straight and narrow does not walk this path freely. Of course, libertarians know well the truth of that observation, but today it demands a rider: Freedom exists only when the right to do wrong is more than nominal. With public funds, administrative regulations, and liability law seeping into every corner of our lives, true freedom exists only if the right to do wrong is not abrogated by the oblique controls these tools allow.
Some years ago, I wrote that we had reached a moment in history when self-esteem, which had always been a supremely important psychological
Objectivism holds that in order to obtain knowledge, man must use an objective process of thought. The essence of objective thought is....
Many believe that animals have the right to be free from harm by people. In particular, they believe that animals should not be harmed in fo
Why have Objectivists written so little about manners? I am inclined to believe it is because they have accepted the common view of manners
In the nineteenth century, Horace Mann began "the reading wars" when he raged against instruction in phonics, calling the letters of the alp
John Bechtel gave his first public talks for the Jehovah's Witnesses at the age of five. By age nine, he was addressing audiences numbering
CEI was established in March 1984. My background had been at the Council for a Competitive Economy, a group that was created as a
Editor's note: The author of this essay, Robert James Bidinotto, is also the author of numerous articles and several books, including...
The story is that you came to Objectivism later in life than most people do and that you came to it more through a process of thought than..
With only a little imagination, Atlas Shrugged may be read as a tale about ingratitude. Many passages make the point, but the most instruct
In The Great Gatsby, in order to traduce the bourgeois tradition of boot-strapping, F. Scott Fitzgerald parodied the self-help program of
In her speech "The Objectivist Ethics," Ayn Rand described the virtue of pride as "moral ambitiousness," because it is predicated on the asp
First, it is important to appreciate that Locke was simultaneously a dedicated political activist and a profound thinker. His body of
Ayn Rand contrasted her morality of rational self-interest not just with altruism but with that irrational egoism which she acknowledged to
That is an interesting story. Originally, I planned to write a Ph.D. dissertation confined to interpreting Locke's moral and political
Christianity has long appreciated its followers' need for tales of model people and behavior. Its fundamental message is conveyed as the
When Ayn Rand called capitalism "the unknown ideal," she might have meant one of two things: Capitalism is an ideal social system that we have never known; or, capitalism is a social system that we have never known to be an ideal.
It's the issue that won't go away. The tragedy at Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colorado, was only one in a series of violent episode
May 2001 -- Last September, then-candidate George W. Bush promised "an orderly and timely withdrawal" of American ground forces from the Balkans. By contrast, defenders of the Clinton Balkan policy maintain that the United States must keep forces on the ground to demonstrate leadership. The administration's choice thus takes on a more-than-ordinary significance because the decision will constitute either an implicit criticism or an implicit endorsement of the way the Clinton administration conducted foreign policy. On both strategic and symbolic grounds, President Bush should bring the troops home. Strategically, their presence is not warranted. Symbolically, the Bush administration needs to signal a dramatic change in America's way of doing business in the world: a return to principled action in foreign policy and to the national interest as the overriding principle.
February 2001 -- "There is no right to do wrong." So said Alan Keyes used to say during his presidential campaign. Apparently, he either did not grasp or did not care that freedom implies the right to do wrong, inasmuch as a person permitted no option but to walk the straight and narrow does not walk this path freely. Of course, libertarians know well the truth of that observation, but today it demands a rider: Freedom exists only when the right to do wrong is more than nominal. With public funds, administrative regulations, and liability law seeping into every corner of our lives, true freedom exists only if the right to do wrong is not abrogated by the oblique controls these tools allow.
Some years ago, I wrote that we had reached a moment in history when self-esteem, which had always been a supremely important psychological
Objectivism holds that in order to obtain knowledge, man must use an objective process of thought. The essence of objective thought is....
Many believe that animals have the right to be free from harm by people. In particular, they believe that animals should not be harmed in fo
Why have Objectivists written so little about manners? I am inclined to believe it is because they have accepted the common view of manners
In the nineteenth century, Horace Mann began "the reading wars" when he raged against instruction in phonics, calling the letters of the alp
John Bechtel gave his first public talks for the Jehovah's Witnesses at the age of five. By age nine, he was addressing audiences numbering
CEI was established in March 1984. My background had been at the Council for a Competitive Economy, a group that was created as a
Editor's note: The author of this essay, Robert James Bidinotto, is also the author of numerous articles and several books, including...
The story is that you came to Objectivism later in life than most people do and that you came to it more through a process of thought than..
With only a little imagination, Atlas Shrugged may be read as a tale about ingratitude. Many passages make the point, but the most instruct
In The Great Gatsby, in order to traduce the bourgeois tradition of boot-strapping, F. Scott Fitzgerald parodied the self-help program of
In her speech "The Objectivist Ethics," Ayn Rand described the virtue of pride as "moral ambitiousness," because it is predicated on the asp
First, it is important to appreciate that Locke was simultaneously a dedicated political activist and a profound thinker. His body of
Ayn Rand contrasted her morality of rational self-interest not just with altruism but with that irrational egoism which she acknowledged to
That is an interesting story. Originally, I planned to write a Ph.D. dissertation confined to interpreting Locke's moral and political
Christianity has long appreciated its followers' need for tales of model people and behavior. Its fundamental message is conveyed as the
When Ayn Rand called capitalism "the unknown ideal," she might have meant one of two things: Capitalism is an ideal social system that we have never known; or, capitalism is a social system that we have never known to be an ideal.
It's the issue that won't go away. The tragedy at Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colorado, was only one in a series of violent episode