Articles: Machan, Tibor R.

Individualism is the view, put briefly, that human beings are identifiable as a distinct species in the natural world and have as at least one of their central attributes the capacity to be unique rational individuals.

A central topic of philosophy throughout the ages has been whether human

beings can trust their minds, including their sensory awareness and
thinking. Skepticism about this has been a major challenge and many from
Socrates to such recent and current thinkers as Ayn Rand and John Searle
have responded with more or less elaborate arguments defending our
capacity to get things right about the world.

          Krugman has a regular column in The Times, so he can discuss what he chooses to discuss so why is he fussing, as he did in a recent column, that others have other topics they wish to discuss not the ones he likes? Must we all take the lead of Krugman? What conceit!

Often when I argue that governments must not violate our rights--they are supposed to be unalienable, after all--statists have a ready retort:  Government is already violating them, good and hard, all over the place.  

Just how utterly reliant on sheer power is President Obama can be appreciated from the fact that no one in his administration bothers to defend his policy of confiscating people’s resources.  Apart from calling upon the phony support of a few super rich folks like Warren Buffet -- who, I understand, is by no means offering his own wealth up for use by Mr. Obama (instead engaging in customary dodging and weaving, not paying up) -- no argument has been put forth by the administration for the progressive tax policy it relies upon. 

Something not often noted in the discussion of rape across the globe is that in an age that prizes pragmatism as opposed to firm principles of conduct, even rape can be excused based on the expected benefit to the rapist versus injury to the victim.

Whenever public officials promise to manage affairs of state, I am baffled how they fail to pay heed to public choice theory.  This is the idea, for which the late, great James Buchanan, earned his Nobel Prize (an idea he developed with his friend and colleague Gordon Tullock in the book The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962].).  

I am puzzled that there is hardly any mention in the press – columns, editorials, etc. – about Mr. Obama's executive intrusion in the employment realm. 

Probably every era has its scary ideology and ours, I’m afraid, is egalitarianism.

This morning my TV news station reported on how the Federal Communications Commission drafted an order to visit broadcast newsrooms and make sure they treated news items fairly, that they make balanced presentations of the pros and cons on various public policies.  The order was, however, quickly rescinded.  It was just a bit too draconian a way for the government of supposedly free country, with an explicit first amendment protecting the freedom of the press, to behave.

The fact is that the libertarianism was the gist of the philosophical foundation of the American political system.  Natural individual rights! Limited constitutional government! Free market! Due process of law!