Category: Column

June marks the beginning of summer – a season of beach vacations, garden bounties, and general disinterest in the market. It is well-known that precious metals and other commodities typically face malaise at this time of year as speculators unwind their trades and potential buyers spend their spare cash on hotel rooms and recreation. But […]

The military coup that ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi marks another failure in U.S. foreign policy over several administrations, which have erroneously promoted the notion that American-style democracy in Islamic lands will produce a nation more like ours. The Founders wrote a Constitution. When properly read and obeyed, it guards against pure democracy and makes […]

What’s the outlook for the 2014 Senate elections? The Republicans once again have a chance to overturn the Democrats’ majority, as they did in 2010 and 2012. Much attention has been focused on whether Republicans this time will nominate candidates capable of winning key races, as they failed to do in those two elections. But […]

On: March 1, President Obama signed the Sequester, a budget control act that dramatically affects our nation’s military. We are cutting our carrier force in the all-important Persian Gulf in half, and the Army is planning to cut tens of thousands of American soldiers.On: May 10: Secretary of State John Kerry waived human rights conditions placed on more […]

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” – […]

In the course of human events it is necessary, now and again, to reaffirm some of the thoughts and principles we have lost sight of. And so it is that we need to renew our independence. More than 55 percent of Americans now receive some form of federal government benefit – and many of us […]

Risk your and your family’s lives for up to five months across uncertain seas, dining on salted meats and hard biscuits in pursuit of some frighteningly disturbing zealotry called “religious freedom.” Contemporary liberal American politicians and “properly” educated bureaucrats recognize this danger to the old cause of governmental elitism and so counter it by parroting […]

So much for the denials. An administration that throughout its 2012 re-election campaign denied it was waging a War on Coal has now come out and publicly declared its intention to shut down coal-fired power plants – putting hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work and sending electricity prices skyrocketing. Obama claims he can […]

Harry Anderson, a magician and comic (made famous by his stint as the judge on the old sitcom “Night Court”), used to have a routine where he’d promise to juggle George Washington’s ax. I’m quoting from memory here, but he’d say something like: “I have here George Washington’s original ax — the one he used […]

At the heart of the left’s vision of the world is the implicit assumption that high-minded third parties like themselves can make better decisions for other people than those people can make for themselves. That arbitrary and unsubstantiated assumption underlies a wide spectrum of laws and policies over the years, ranging from urban renewal to […]

Our nation’s 237th birthday is being celebrated in many ways that have become familiar over the years. Fifteen percent of Americans will watch a parade; 29 percent will sing patriotic songs; 63 percent will enjoy a cookout with family and friends; 78 percent are likely to see fireworks. Sixty-one percent consider Independence Day one of […]

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently informed us that a national movement is afoot “to punish the unemployed.” Remarkably, he went on to write, conservatives think the world is far too easy on those who can’t find work, so they’re on a mission to make it worse. The right, you see, is not just […]

We keep hearing insistent claims that if Republicans don’t pass amnesty: yesterday: it will be the end of the party. Can I see the math on that? I can see why bringing in 30 million new Democratic voters would be good for the Democrats, but how does it help Republicans? Maybe conservatives shouldn’t blindly trust the calculations […]

In the old Dr. Faustus story, a young scholar bargains away his soul to the devil for promises of obtaining almost anything he wants. The American media has done much the same thing with the Obama administration. In return for empowering a fellow liberal, the press gave up its traditional adversarial relationship with the president. […]

“Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.” — John Quincy Adams Freedom is not the default position of humankind; otherwise more would be free. In much of the world, dictatorship, religious persecution and the suppression of women […]

The Fourth of July is always an occasion to think about what the United States of America has been, is and will be. A good way to reflect on that is to pick up a copy of “America 3.0” by James Bennett and Michael Lotus and ponder its lessons. As the title suggests, Bennett and […]

The Senate is so out of touch that some leaders think the way to pass a path-to-citizenship bill for immigrants in the country illegally is to budget $40 billion for extra immigration enforcement over the next 10 years. This is the type of cynical ploy that makes everyone hate Washington. The Senate wants to reward […]

Gold’s second quarter price plunge is now the largest on record, dropping 23% in the last three months to finish a little over $1,200. Wall Street is gloating that a new metals bear market is upon us. A Duke professor even forecast gold returning to its “fair value” of $800 or lower. Naturally, he was […]

The fundamental problem of the political left seems to be that the real world does not fit their preconceptions. Therefore they see the real world as what is wrong, and what needs to be changed, since apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong. A never-ending source of grievances for the left is the fact that some […]

As we celebrate our nation’s 237th birthday, a crucial facet of American life has all but vanished. We have forsaken, in any systematic and deliberate public manner, one of our most fundamental duties: fostering civic virtue in each and every one of our citizens. What does it mean to be an American? Politicians in both […]

Many libertarians, outraged by how our government spies on us, call me a “traitor” because I’m not very angry. I understand that the National Security Administration tracking patterns in our emails and phone calls could put us on a terrible, privacy-crushing slippery slope. But we’re not there yet. Some perspective: We are less closely watched […]

The political left has long claimed the role of protector of “the poor.” It is one of their central moral claims to political power. But how valid is this claim? Leaders of the left in many countries have promoted policies that enable the poor to be more comfortable in their poverty. But that raises a […]

Recent opinion polls demonstrate a deepening distrust of the federal government. That’s not an altogether bad thing. Our nation’s founders recognized that most human abuses are the result of government. As Thomas Paine said, “government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil.” Because of their fear of abuse, the Constitution’s framers sought […]

You just can’t out-gloom an environmentalist. The Atlantic invited some luminaries to answer the question “How and when will the world end?” Some contributions were funny. Others simply plausible — a volcanic eruption from underneath Yellowstone National Park is frightfully overdue. But only an environmentalist like Bill McKibben could be a killjoy about the apocalypse […]