September 14, 2013

Takeaways from the Zimmerman-Martin Tragedy

For well over a year, Americans passionately debated whether George Zimmerman wrongfully ended Trayvon Martin's life. The Zimmerman trial gripped the nation like no other since O.J. Simpson's.  While it was encouraging that so many people took a...

July 5, 2013

Two Competing Political Philosophies

Happy Birthday, America! This week we celebrate our country's birth. Patriots honor America as a republic conceived as a polity in which all may live safely and securely in the enjoyment of their inalienable, God-given rights. We are inspired by the...

March 28, 2013

Gay Marriage and Legal Surrealism

There have been strong arguments on both sides about how the Supreme Court should rule on the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8 this week. Whatever happens, I can't escape the feeling that there is something surreal about the leg...

November 2, 2012

A Frank Conversation about Race

Shortly after taking office in 2009, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder declared that Americans are "a nation of cowards" about race.  We "simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial." Well, I've been told that you can't write ...

October 26, 2012

Obama's Trip to the Dark Side

Let's try a thought experiment: Put yourself in the shoes of America-hating strongmen like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Venezuela's Hugo Chavez: The United States is the biggest thorn in your side; your ultimate dream would be to inflict a humiliati...

September 21, 2012

The Commonness of Barack Obama

Both admirers and detractors of Barack Obama have commented on what a unique historical character he is.  In a narrow sense, and particularly within the context of American history, we may grant that Obama is different. For the first time, Ameri...

July 7, 2012

Contempt: The Defining Characteristic of the Obama Presidency

From the very beginning, many writers, scholars, and commentators have attempted to define the essence of Barack Obama's presidency. It isn't easy to find a simple label for such a multifaceted individual.  On any given day, Obama may seem like ...

March 7, 2012

Barack Obama, Caudillo

The Spanish term "caudillo" (pronounced cow-THEE-yo) refers to a strongman or autocratic leader.  Latin America has had a number of caudillos.  Some have been right-wing (i.e., anticommunist, pro-American, such as Somoza in Nicaragua), othe...

February 25, 2012

The Poison in Our Polity

Forgive me as I borrow that insipidly unoriginal question that journalists ask athletes after a championship game -- "How do you feel?" -- as I ask you: how would you feel if you knew that your neighbors were going to enter your house while you had b...

February 14, 2012

There He Goes Again: Obama's Waivers to the No Child Left Behind Act

President Obama recently announced his decision to, in the words of an Associated Press report, "free 10 states from the strict and sweeping requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act" by issuing waivers to them.  This is a fundamentally flawe...

October 18, 2011

Class Warfare Rhetoric and Reality

Is there class warfare in America today? That is how some Republicans characterized President Obama's latest attempt to raise taxes on whomever he means by "the rich." Many liberals don't think the "class warfare" label is fair. Well, what are we sup...

October 1, 2011

We've Been ZIRPed by the Fed

It isn't easy to earn interest income these days.  Interest rates on government T-bills, banks' savings accounts, and certificates of deposit are microscopic.  You can blame our government and central bank.  They have "ZIRPed" millions...

August 27, 2011

London's Hooligans

The world was shocked.  London -- venerable, staid, the quintessence of civilization -- seemed to descend into savagery.  For several days, England's capital was convulsed in paroxysms of random, degenerate violence. My concern about London...

February 21, 2011

Tea Party Democrats

I have good news and bad news:  The good news is that the political ideals and values of some prominent Democrats are so right-wing that they make most Tea Party leaders seem like liberals in comparison.  The bad news is that all those righ...

November 15, 2010

Fed Up with the Fed

It is time (as it has been for decades now) to rethink the role of the Federal Reserve Bank.  An article of this length is insufficient to examine all the problems associated with the Fed, so I will concentrate on three problematical areas:...

October 12, 2010

Demystifying Deflation

To the powers-that-be in Washington, deflation is Public Enemy No. 1. Why is deflation -- in layman's terms, "widespread declining prices" -- so feared? First, we must distinguish between benign deflation and traumatic deflation.In a truly ...

August 17, 2010

Understanding 'Austerity'

A couple of years ago, the terms "too big to fail" and "bailout" were the trendy buzzwords. Currently, the "in" word seems to be "austerity." On both sides of the Atlantic, public officials and media pundits ar...

May 27, 2010

Positive and Negative Government

Early on in life, kids are taught the concepts of positive and negative in science. They learn about positive and negative poles on magnets and positive and negative terminals on batteries.  By junior high school, kids are introduced to positive...

May 4, 2010

Palin and the Leftist Elites

Sarah Palin is one of the most intriguing (and polarizing) personalities to emerge on the national political stage in a long time. The way that many conservatives embrace her and many liberals vilify her illustrates in microcosm the yawning political...

April 9, 2010

Ludwig von Mises: Setting the Record Straight

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) is an iconic figure on the right, known as a great economist and a leading theoretician of free markets. (The surname is pronounced "MEE-zes" -- like "Moses" with a long "e" instead of "...

March 7, 2010

The Keynesian Stimulus Dogma

Most Americans don't believe that the way for Washington to address its gargantuan debt is to increase deficit spending and go deeper into debt. Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman disagree. Stiglitz, for example, in an interview televis...

February 17, 2010

Who's an "Ideologue"?

Speaking to the House Republican Conference on January 29, Barack Obama disingenuously asserted, "I am not an ideologue." I couldn't see the faces of his audience on the C-SPAN broadcast, but they must have registered strong disbelief, beca...

February 6, 2010

Our National Blind Spot

Nobody will dispute the fact that there are differences between private and public behavior. We can all think of things that we do privately that we would never consider doing in public.  This holds true in politics, too. Specifically, the vast ...

January 31, 2010

Degenerate Democracy

Aristotle considered the adjective "degenerate" redundant when coupled with "democracy," and America's founding fathers shared Aristotle's disapprobation.  With characteristic bluntness, John Adams asserted, "Democracy n...

January 23, 2010

Dusting Off the Political F-Word

Its use is shunned in polite company. It coarsens political discourse. Its introduction into conversation raises hackles and stirs emotions. It carries so much connotative baggage that its denotative significance is often totally eclipsed. It is a ve...

December 7, 2009

The Cuckoo's Nest Visits Copenhagen

One of my all-time favorite novels is Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, later made into an Oscar-winning film. Set in an institution for psychological patients, Cuckoo's Nest is a cautionary tale about all institutions -- schools, churches...