 Our Friend Alfredo
by James Kilbourne
God damn you if the only two words you can find to put together when talking about people who leave their homelands to seek a better life for themselves and their families are “illegal aliens.” (Read more...)
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 Bush Wins!
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Other things being equal, voters are not going to choose Kerry, when they’ve already got in Bush a Republican dedicated to all the conventional Democratic planks: an expanding welfare state, budget deficits, and a war abroad. A long and potentially nasty campaign beckons ... But, as of this moment, I still think Bush wins. (Read more...)
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Marketing A Free Society: Education, Persuasion, and Conversion
by Edward W. Younkins
Ideas are the most powerful forces in the world and the motive power of human progress. There already exists a body of well-articulated, theoretically consistent, systematic, and intellectually sound defenses of capitalism which expound the principles of traditional liberalism, voluntary cooperation, and individual fre... (Read more...)
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Tolerating Intolerance: Why Hate Speech Is Free Speech
by Jonathan R
With words, an orator can touch your very soul, inciting a people to insurrection or moving a mob to vigilantism. Yet words are always just words, since the breaking of sound waves across one’s ears is qualitatively different from the breaking of a baseball bat across one’s back. (Read more...)
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Lottery Money - No Free Lunch
by David Bertelsen
State lotteries are not a "free" lunch. Somebody may be getting a free meal, but others are paying for it. State lotteries are a tax on gambling, and to a large extent, a tax on the poor. They must end. (Read more...)
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Foundations of a Free Economy
by Martin Masse
Review of Capitalism and Commerce: Conceptual Foundations of Free Enterprise, by Edward Younkins, Lexington Books, August 2002, 360 pp., $26.95 paperback.
... (Read more...)
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A Book Endorsement
by Tibor R. Machan
Professor Hicks has written a sweeping yet very readable explanation of why contemporary intellectuals embrace postmodernism. This is the position widely championed in academic circles - from philosophy, literature, law and the social sciences - that holds that there is no truth, no reality, no clear meaning, no understanding and, most of all, no value in relying on human reason for any purpose whatsoever. (Read more...)
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The Euphemism Of Anti-Semitism
by Alec Mouhibian
The contradictory irrationalities lying at the core of anti-Semitism, which a superficial treatment ignores, have been undefeated and even permeate many Jews themselves — as displayed by the large number of successful Jewish businessmen with socialistic political tendencies. (Read more...)
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Democracy = Freedom (For The Mob)
by Craig Drayton
As someone who has only recently discovered Objectivism, I recently looked back on my previous thoughts as one of the sheeple, where I accepted many ideas that are commonly thrown around without question. To my horror, I recalled a time where I would have been heard to say that "Communism is a good idea in theory, it j... (Read more...)
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Funding Government Without Taxation
by Edward W. Younkins
Are there any feasible alternatives to taxation? Perhaps it is possible for government to act like any other service provider through the offering of services and allowing individuals to decide for themselves which services they want to use and pay for.
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Global Lukewarming
by Scott T. Schad
Global warming is the 21st century version of alchemy. A flawed premise supports a mountain of pseudo-science and a cottage industry of short-sighted professionals swapping their integrity for 15 minutes of fame. (Read more...)
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Multiculturalism = Multiconformism
by Andrew Bates
The nature of the oppression of women and racial minorities is the rejection of individualism. In failing to identify and treat a woman, a Maori or a Pacific Islander as an individual and to evaluate that person based on the content of his character, the real bigots engage in collectivism. (Read more...)
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Michael Moore's Mystery Message
by G. Stolyarov II
Gather round, and I shall teach you a new game, called “Michael Moore’s Mystery Message.” It is a fun game, really; you get to see a film, visit a colorful website, manage a few ironic laughs at someone who seeks to make you laugh at President Bush, and, at the end, receive a grand prize. What is this prize? That is a mystery to be unraveled, much like Michael Moore’s message. Are you ready? (Read more...)
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The Puzzle Of The Fourth
by Tibor R. Machan
When a society, supposedly founded on the idea that our basic individual rights are unalienable - incapable of being lost and obligatory for all to respect - is being "educated" mostly by people at all levels who reject those very same ideas, is it any wonder that all that the Fourth of July has become is an occasion for empty gesture and meaningless fanfare? (Read more...)
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Marriage Needs No Defense
by Matthew Graybosch
Marriage needs no defense. It is not a bond that can be created by a priest's incantations or a judge's decree, and it is not a bond that can be denied or broken by the church or the state. A marriage is made by two people who value each other as highly as themselves, and only they can end the marriage. (Read more...)
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Politicians Shouldn't Come First
by Tibor R. Machan
Why are our dollar bills and coins adorned by the faces of politicians? Most of these folks knew only how to spend money, not how to create goods and services for which money is supposed to stand. Let's put some ionventors, merchants, artist and scientists there to remind ourselves who really makes the world go around. (Read more...)
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Intellectual Property: Have Your Cake Or Eat It
by Joseph Rowlands
There are plenty of interesting arguments on both sides of the intellectual property debate, and this article isn't written to end it. Instead, I want to up the stakes of the debate. (Read more...)
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A Method of Transferring Fractional Ounces of Physical Gold, with Confidence, from Person to Person.
by Paul Hibbert
Objectivists, libertarians and free market advocates are all strong believers in gold as a medium of exchange. Such luminaries as Alan Greenspan ("Gold and Economic Freedom", The Objectivist, July 1996 and "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"), Murray N. Rothbard, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and many others have ... (Read more...)
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Not Respecting Opinions
by Dustin Hawkins
If anything has become far too overdone in debate it is the oversensitivity we feel for our ideological opponents. It has almost become tradition to respect others' opinions. (Read more...)
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White-Collar Crime
by Joseph Rowlands
Those who attack property rights are opening the door for thievery by obscuring its identity. Only a philosophy consistent with property rights can argue effectively against white-collar crime, since the right to property is the only defense against theft. (Read more...)
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Reagan's Ideas Still Rankle
by Tibor R. Machan
When Reagan reminded Americans that they need to recover the notion of individual responsibility, he wasn’t producing a doctoral dissertation about free will versus determinism or about moral choice and responsibility. He was issuing a succinct reminder, that’s all. And when one does this, one necessarily simplifies. (Read more...)
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The Virtue of Exploitation
by Joe Trusnik
“Exploitation” isn’t a sin; it’s a virtue. It’s getting the most bang for your buck. It’s attempting to profit as much as possible. It’s attempting to achieve the most you can for the least expense. It’s going after the better deal, finding the best quality. (Read more...)
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The Reality and Morality of Business
by Edward W. Younkins
Business is based on the idea that self-interest and the desire for profit are moral and good and that there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to profit. One’s survival and flourishing as a human being involves the creation, preservation, and use of wealth in self-fulfilling ways. Business is concerned with what i... (Read more...)
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Rendezvous with Destiny
by James Kilbourne
The speech was entitled “Rendezvous with Destiny,” and none of us was prepared for the strength of its content or the power of its presentation. I remember turning to a friend at its conclusion and saying, “Maybe we have the wrong candidate.” (Read more...)
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Aristotle and the Highest Good
by Jeff Landauer
I had always heard that Aristotle’s ethics were all about Eudaimonia. Imagine my horror and shock when I read in Book 1, Section 2 of Nichomachean Ethics that the highest good belongs to the science of politics. “The attainment of the good for one man alone is, to be sure, a source of satisfaction; yet to secure it for a nation and for states is nobler and more divine.” (Read more...)
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