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Articles: Commentary


Friday
May 28, 2010
Commentary
Dealing with Racists in a Free Market
by Tibor R. Machan
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Finally, the Rand Paul furor, we have an issue in politics worthy of sustained, serious attention--How should people who act badly be dealt with?  More particularly how should people who discriminate based on irrelevancies such as race, sex, national origin, physical impediments, etc., be treated?  Should they be punished and forced to do the right thing?  Should they be ignored and left to rot with their evil souls.  Should they be ostracized and boycotted? (Read more...)
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Thursday
May 13, 2010
Commentary
Immigration Quotas vs. Individual Rights: The Moral and Practical Case for Open Immigration
by Harry Binswanger
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Harry Binswanger's case against immigration quotas and for open immigration. (Read more...)
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Tuesday
May 4, 2010
Commentary
The Folly of Fairness
by Tibor R. Machan
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       I just have no clear clue as to what fair trade or even fairness is supposed to be. (Read more...)
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Thursday
April 22, 2010
Commentary
Skepticism about Government Regulation
by Tibor R. Machan
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As the question goes, "Who is going to regulate the regulators when they engage in truly dangerous misconduct?" (Read more...)
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Saturday
March 27, 2010
Commentary
Is the U. S. Self-Interested?
by Tibor R. Machan
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     Who can dispute that self-defense is self-interested?  Of course, with the prominence of altruism among intellectuals and public figures, it is probably no great surprise that Mr. Obama would reject characterizing American foreign policy as self-interested.  "Selfish" has this bad odor about it and has had that since when philosophers, theologians and psychologists have decided that the human self is something malign. (Read more...)
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Sunday
March 14, 2010
Commentary
The Anatomy of Coercion
by William Scott Dwyer
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In this article, I reply to arguments by John Hospers in which he questions the clarity and legitimacy of the non-initiation-of-force principle. I defend the principle and explain what is wrong with his philosophical objections to it. (Read more...)
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Sunday
March 7, 2010
Commentary
Big Business as Opponent of Free-Markets
by Tom Blumer
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A link to an article at another web site. (Read more...)
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Thursday
March 4, 2010
Commentary
In Defense of Joe Stack
by B B
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Which do you consider more delusional: flying a plane into a government building in retaliation of government abuse or believing that the government exists to protect your individual rights? If you answered the former, you're certainly not alone. However, though you might not have thought twice before responding to what appeared to be a silly question, perhaps it's worth considering the moral premises that led to your belief. (Read more...)
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Sunday
February 28, 2010
Commentary
How about them Philosophical Differences?
by Tibor R. Machan
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       The little commitment to individual liberty and free market transactions left within the ranks of Republicans just isn't going to give them intellectual--philosophical--leverage against a clever bunch of egalitarians. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 24, 2010
Commentary
AS THE WORLD WATCHED INFERIOR BOWL SUNDAY 2010
by Alexandra York
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So there it was in all its international “glory”: Super Bowl 2010, this year becoming the most-watched show in the whole of television history, broadcasting to the entire world a series of snapshots depicting Americans’ preferred pleasures and pastimes. (Read more...)
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Sunday
February 21, 2010
Commentary
Tea Parties vs. Originalism
by Curtis Edward Clark
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Tea Party language calls for "smaller government". Smaller government means nothing, because theoretically it could still include Medicare, Social Security, income taxes, death taxes, and other forms of government power over the individual that was never "originally intended." (Read more...)
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Sunday
February 14, 2010
Commentary
Public Service Work and Unionization
by Tibor R. Machan
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America is supposed to be a free country, as are in fact all others supposed to be, and here some semblance of such a country had been attempted.  But public service unions, as many other "pseudo-market" agents--companies receiving subsidies and protection from foreign competition--are subverting this attempt.  It is high time to put an end to it all.   (Read more...)
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Monday
February 1, 2010
Commentary
Why the First Amendment?
by Tibor R. Machan
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        All the fuss about the various US Supreme and other court rulings pertaining to campaign contributions would, I believe, subside once the matter were put into the right framework, namely, the exercise of the right to private property. It is not about free speech but about freedom to use what belongs to one as he or she--or they-- see fit.   (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 20, 2010
Commentary
Planners and Earthquakes
by Tibor R. Machan
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A massive earthquake is only a reminder of what the Austrian economists taught with their research and theoretical work--the most reasonable economic system is one that lets decisions be made on the ground, among the free men and women who make the market do its work. (Read more...)
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Saturday
January 16, 2010
Commentary
"Don't You Eat That Yellow Snow," or, The Unmitigated Audacity of "Hope"
by Joseph C. Maurone
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They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But when that lemonade comes from the Obama administration, the best advice is to "watch out where Alinsky goes, and don't you eat that yellow snow..." (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 13, 2010
Commentary
Will Google Leave China?
by Jack Zhang
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Google's threat of pulling out in China due to its refusal to comply with Chinese censorship laws and the numerous severe web attack against it's google.cn chinese server that might be caused by Chinese officials or anonymous hackers. What do you guys thing?

also look: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Google-threat-a-rare-show-of-apf-1244144999.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10433745-265.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1 (Read more...)

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Saturday
January 9, 2010
Commentary
Fear of Nuclear Power and Global Warming
by Michael F Dickey
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Environmental alarmism hi-jacked the natural technological progression into nuclear power and, if anthropogenic global warming is real, subsequently caused the very global warming that environmentalists are raising alarming fears about now. (Read more...)
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Monday
January 4, 2010
Commentary
On Uniting the Country
by Tibor R. Machan
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        On January 3rd, just after Meet the Press, NBC-TV broadcast a radio address by President Obama and while I have become nearly completely pessimistic, even cynical, about expecting anything uplifting from politicians these days--I think there could be some and have been a very few--I listened to the whole message.  I never quite foreclose the possibility that people will change course, improve, gain new insights, and otherwise depart from their bad habits. (Read more...)
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Tuesday
December 22, 2009
Commentary
Avatar
by Michel Hulmann
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I watched Avatar yesterday. I was impressed with James Cameron's ability to boost the film industry, to revolutionize the technique and expand the possibilities of narrative. However, aesthetically, the movie is a garbage. If art is "re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments", ... (Read more...)
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Friday
December 18, 2009
Commentary
Temporal Altruism
by Curtis Edward Clark
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While our politicians are extending the national debt into the futures of our grandchildren, Thomas W. Clark wants to extend altruism into the future---over the issue of ecology. "For those with children and grandchildren," writes Clark, "imagining loved ones facing an ecologically impoverished world works well to motivate concern. But for those of us who don’t, why should we forgo present pleasures for the sake of a future we’ll never see?"
(Read more...)

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Saturday
December 5, 2009
Commentary
A Bit of Good News
by Tibor R. Machan
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Private property rights are the bedrock of a bona fide free country.  Just for starters, the rights to freedom of religion and the press directly depend on it--if private property can lawfully be taken by state agencies, based on spurious, subjective grounds like blight, any religious or journalistic practice not approved of by state agents becomes vulnerable to censorship or worse. (Read more...)
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Sunday
November 22, 2009
Commentary
Can We Cause Our Actions?
by Tibor R. Machan
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In a recent Op Ed column for Free Inquiry magazine--December 09/January10--Mr. Thomas Clark claims that the defense of human agency that some folks, including me, have been advancing for many years involves what he terms “contra-causal” free will. It does not. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
November 11, 2009
Commentary
On Corporation Phobia
by Tibor R. Machan
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What would be cool, actually, is if both Michael Moore and Ralph Nader, as well as their admirers, recognized that the bad guys are mainly those in power, the politicians and bureaucrats, not the citizens who, various grouped, are trying to get in on the game of wealth redistribution. (Read more...)
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Thursday
November 5, 2009
Commentary
Another Ayn Rand thread at Reason.com
by Jim Henshaw
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On yet another Ayn Rand thread over at Reason.com's Hit and Run (presumably to cross-promote the upcoming Ayn Rand series at Reason.TV), one of the Reason staffers (Tim Cavanaugh) who is reading the Fountainhead for the first time (!) posed two question about the book that I (posting as "prolefeed") and two other peopl... (Read more...)
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Tuesday
October 27, 2009
Commentary
Sex in The Fountainhead - The Rape of Ayn Rand
by B B
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Rape, also referred to as sexual assault, is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with or without sexual penetration of another person without that person’s consent. I’ve had many conversations over the years about this scene, especially with those who I would consider "surface-readers" - those who read without the curiosity to explore the implications. Was it rape or wasn’t it? The answer boils down to whether or not Dominique Francon gave her consent to Howard Roark.

I think Dominique did consent to the sex, wanted it, and even encouraged it through her actions. (Read more...)

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