Commentary

August 14, 2002 -- The Internet is a wonderful tool. It allows for easier research, entertainment, and better communication with friends and relatives. But it also has spam. Junk email arrives every day with promises of riches and weight loss. These really don’t bother me; it only takes a second to press delete. What bother me are the petitions, in particular the petition to save public radio. I must get this petition every three or four months. “NPR funding is in danger of being cut!” “Congress is going to end public radio!” If only such things were true. These petitions, it turns out, are just one of the many urban legends floating around the Internet. NPR isn’t in any real danger of losing its taxpayer funding. But it should be.

Apr 4, 2010

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Shawn E. Klein

October 5, 2004 -- On October 4, 2004, the 47th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, humanity again made spaceflight history. SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan and his company, Scaled Composites, and built with money from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, won the privately funded $10 million Ansari X Prize by becoming the first three-passenger private vehicle to fly into space twice in a two-week period.

Apr 4, 2010

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Edward Hudgins

April 16, 2007 -- Every year, it is more difficult to decide what to say about the evils of our current tax system since most of it has already been said. So let's focus instead on to whom we should say it. The presidential campaigns have already begun, and by Tax Day next year candidates for president and Congress will be seeking our votes. It's time to seek something from them. This is an opportunity to confront those candidates and politicians—in letters to the editor, on radio and TV call-in shows, at campaign rallies and town meetings—and ask them some very pointed questions:

Apr 4, 2010

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Edward Hudgins

October 31, 2001 -- Students at Liberty Middle School in Ashland, Virginia have come up with a remarkably good idea. It’s called " The Liberty Dollar Bill Act ", a bill proposed to Congress to place an abbreviated version of the entire U. S. Constitution on the back of one-dollar bills. This is a great idea because Americans don’t know their Constitution—its history, its fundamentals of checks and balances, or the individual rights secured by its protections against government power. For instance, the students cite polls showing that 62% of Americans can’t name the three branches of the federal government. And 94% of Americans don’t know their precious First Amendment rights. Can’t name them yourself? This proposal would remedy that situation, as every American handling money would have the features of the Constitution right in the palm of his or her hand. A quick and meaningful lesson in American government would be available to all.

Apr 4, 2010

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Stephen Cox

May 9, 2002 -- Why did a rule change made by one of the thousands of co-op boards in this country make national news? The association at 180 West End Avenue in New York recently decided to ban new occupants from smoking in their own apartments. Some would say that residents know ahead of time that co-op contracts give associations the right to make such rules and, in this case, no current resident will be barred from smoking. Others see the decision as a sign of growing political correctness and intolerance. Both sides are in part correct. The ostensive reason for the ban was that tobacco smoke travels through the building’s ventilation system into non-smokers’ homes. (Full disclosure here: I don’t smoke cigarettes.) This is a legitimate concern, especially for individuals who might be allergic to such smoke. Assuming that it does not violate some explicit or implicit contract right, I suspect that this decision is a proper exercise of the property rights of the association. (The same principle applies to condominiums.) A co-op association is a private club and members agree before joining to abide by the club rules.

Apr 4, 2010

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Edward Hudgins

January 30, 2002 -- In his powerful State of the Union address, President Bush gave voice to the two deepest truths of a free society: that the essential function of its government is to provide security, and that it depends on a culture of responsibility. On the first of these themes, his words were as clear and forceful as his actions have been in waging the war on terrorism. Looking beyond the immediate threat, he set a long-term goal of eliminating terrorist networks and the regimes that sponsor them. And looking beyond the physical threat, he identified the underlying conflict of values: “They embrace tyranny and death as a cause and a creed….We choose freedom and the dignity of every life.”

Apr 4, 2010

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David Kelley, Ph.D.

October 3, 2001 -- With grim determination, hundreds of rescue workers in lower Manhattan began scrawling their names on their bodies, in case they too joined the staggering ranks of the unidentifiable dead. On the calm campuses of America’s elite universities, however, students wasted no time before wallowing in anti-capitalist slogans, identity politics, and the appeasement of evil. Dragging moral relativism down to new depths, Yale Daily News writer Donald Waack equated a U.S. military response with the terrorist attack itself. "We are willing to sacrifice our lives for the ideals we believe…The men who steered passenger jets into the World Trade Center towers and killed thousands…felt precisely the same way."

Apr 4, 2010

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Damon W. Root

June 13, 2001 -- Here’s another one for the “There ought to be a law!” file: banning cell phones while driving. It is distracting and may even cause road rage in fellow drivers. There ought to be a law, right? With 40 states considering some type of ban on using cell phones while driving, most people think so. New York Governor George Pataki even issued an executive order banning state employees from using state-issued cell phones while behind the wheel. And the New York state legislature is considering a statewide ban. “There ought to be a law!” On the talk radio circuit, listeners and hosts alike complain about swerving drivers and near-miss accidents. On Capitol Hill, Congress holds hearings. “There ought to be a law!”

Apr 4, 2010

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Shawn E. Klein

June 11, 2001 -- Richard Boeken smoked two packs a day for over 40 years. He averaged a cigarette every 25 minutes of his waking hours, starting in 1957 at age 13. And now the cancer-ridden Boeken has reaped the rewards of his habit. On Wednesday, a Los Angeles court ruled that cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris is liable for $3 billion in punitive damages for failing to properly inform Boeken of the dangers of smoking. This court-sponsored immunity from personal responsibility is a stronger threat to America than smoking itself. The travesty of the judgment lies not in the size of the damage award, but in the assertion that Boeken is faultless. At the root of this judgment lies the presumption that individuals are incapable of controlling their own behavior. Boeken would have us believe that addiction and false advertising account for the nearly 600,000 cigarettes he lit during forty-plus years of chain smoking. The Philip Morris executives may as well have held the matches to Boeken's Marlboros as he lay strapped to the hoods of their Cadillacs, their influence on him was so powerful.

Apr 4, 2010

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July 19, 2002 -- This is an opportune time for the Bush Administration and Congress to end the Amtrak protection racket. Amtrak's threatened shutdown is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to extort more money from U.S. taxpayers. Having developed consumer dependence upon its commuter trains, shut out competition through its government-created and -subsidized monopoly, and failed to turn a profit, Amtrak has again come, hat in hand, to extort more money in return for not leaving commuters stranded on train platforms. But Amtrak is merely symptomatic of a deeper problem facing our nation: the idea of entitlement. In the case of Amtrak, some small sector of the population has determined that it is entitled to the product of someone else's labor in order to subsidize its own commuter costs. And Amtrak has determined that it is easier to obtain government subsidies than it is to run a passenger railroad line profitably and in competition with other rail lines. The same determinations have been made in agriculture, the steel industry, and hosts of other industries. But what is the justification of such plans, which take the hard-earned wages of some Americans to subsidize failing companies or farmers, or business commuters?

Apr 4, 2010

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November 7, 2001 -- As a result of the war on terrorism, many people feel an urge to "do something." It is a noble urge, but, like all urges, requires intelligent direction. Unfortunately, that is just the kind of direction we are not getting. What is happening instead is that politicians are taking advantage of people's honorable desire to do something in order to advocate pet projects. Thus, on November 6, 2001, Senators John McCain and Evan Bayh took to the Op-Ed page of the New York Times to advocate expanded programs of national service, "from promoting literacy to caring for the elderly" ("A New Start for National Service"). To anyone who remembers Senator McCain's presidential bid, this will be all-too-familiar, but it is exactly the reverse of the path that America should be following.

Apr 4, 2010

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March 27, 2002 -- President Bush showed rare integrity and character in his actions after September 11. Relying on good principles, he led this country out of its shock and anger and towards justice and restoration. He has repeatedly vowed to root out the terrorist networks perpetrating violence and bring an end to the states sponsoring or aiding these networks. Wherever these terrorists are and whichever states support them, all will be treated alike; all will be brought to justice. However, even after our success against al-Qaeda, the administration has backpedaled on one of the best-known terrorist networks. Yassir Arafat and the PLO routinely aid and protect terrorists and have probably sponsored much terrorism directly.

Apr 4, 2010

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Shawn E. Klein

The media makes “urban sprawl” sound like some kind of terrible virus that will infect the forests and other green areas of the world and cause them to disappear forever. Urban sprawl refers to replacing forests and farms (which are pretty, and desirable to those who do not have to pay the taxes on them) by other things that are not so pretty, like factories, homes, highways, shopping malls, and people But factories provide jobs for people to improve their standard of living. Home ownership has defined the American dream. New and better highways make it easier for people to get around. Shopping malls are constructed to fill people's need to buy food, clothing, and other items. And just what is wrong with people moving to areas that were once farms and forests? People have been doing this in this country for over 300 years. Why should they stop now?

Apr 4, 2010

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February 7, 2002 -- Call it a tribute to the individuality of human taste. How rarely one person feels a strong attraction to another. The phenomenon is so infrequent that we recall, back to our school days, those that made our heart flutter—the moments in time that stand still, during which we experience cinema-like captivation. One’s life experiences result, understandably, in preferences for a certain type of person. Love is a theme universally trumpeted but, by necessity, individually understood. Wherever a discerning mind ponders romance, a unique image of the ideal will materialize. The discovery of that ideal is exhilaration like no other.

Apr 4, 2010

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December 19, 2005 -- If art holds a mirror to reality, the original 1933 King Kong, the 1976 remake, and the latest version by Peter Jackson show a culture that swung from romantic optimism to cynicism and now is perhaps returning to a healthier sense of life. The original King Kong very much reflected the values of its maker, Merian C. Cooper. When Cooper was six years old, his uncle gave him a book called Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa that inspired his imagination with tales of the jungle and strange animals, including gorillas. He wanted to be an explorer. He went to the U.S. Naval Academy but got booted out for suggesting that the recently-invented airplane could someday sink battleships. He became a bomber pilot in World War I and was shot down and imprisoned by the Germans. After the war, he flew for the Poles who fought Soviet invaders in 1920. He was shot down again and thrown into a communist slave camp but escaped. Years later, he made movies celebrating American values to counter communist propaganda.

Apr 4, 2010

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Edward Hudgins

December 20, 2002 -- "Drop the candy cane, step away from the punch bowl." Is that the order we’ll hear some day from armed food cops trying to prevent us from committing holiday health crimes against ourselves? Before you emit a "Ho ho ho" of derision, take a sip of your eggnog (360 calories per cup) and consider the ghost of Christmas future that might haunt us if we’re not careful. Here’s how the criminalization of Christmas goodies might come about. The first contributing element is the "war on fat." Some groups and agencies claim that 65 percent of Americans are overweight and 30 percent are obese. While many Americans do have serious weight problems, by the questionable standard used to generate these stats, athletes like Barry Bonds and Michael Jordan should go on diets. It’s also alleged that 300,000 die each year from weight-related problems. Never mind that the New England Journal of Medicine stated that "that figure is by no means well established. Not only is it derived from weak or incomplete data, but it is also called into question by the methodological difficulties."

Apr 4, 2010

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Edward Hudgins

December 4, 2001 -- In the coming months, ethicists will be variously defending or condemning human cloning and embryonic stem cell research. They will debate the potential benefits of the technology and discuss the social consequences of the advancing science. But in the end, the ethical question will turn on the issue of when a human life begins—i.e., the life of a distinct, individual human being, a person. There is no simple answer, because the different dimensions of a person's identity emerge at different points in a continuous and complex process of development. Genetic identity is present in the fertilized egg. Cognitive identity emerges later when the fetus acquires the neural basis for conceptual thought. Biological identity as a distinct organism begins to emerge at the point of viability, and is fully present at birth. The person's moral identity as a being capable of voluntary choice on the basis of knowing right from wrong, and his spiritual identity as a self-consciously differentiated personality, are both later developments of childhood and adolescence.

Mar 31, 2010

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Patrick Stephens

March 6, 2002 -- Because I live in Warsaw, I get most of my TV news from the BBC. Recently I have watched, dumbfounded and amused, the outpouring of concern for the comfort of the al-Qaeda prisoners kept at Guantanamo Bay. They were transported shackled with bags over their heads! They sleep in open cages! Four of them have British passports! Have they all had their Miranda warnings? The fact that they are undoubtedly living in less discomfort than they freely chose to undergo in the field doesn’t seem to register. I often think that the most common error in reasoning is a kind of category error, the placing of an issue in a category in which it doesn’t belong. The classic example is the “no right to shout fire in a crowded theater” issue, often cited in a free-speech context when it clearly belongs in an implied-contract context.

Mar 31, 2010

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July 4, 2007 -- On July 4, 1776, America's Founders declared the country's independence from Britain, largely as a revolt against excessive and unfair taxation. So in our nation, which is much more overtaxed than it was over two centuries ago, it would be fitting if, in recognition of our Founding principles, federal, state and, local governments made July Fourth a totally tax-free day. Many cities already suspend sales taxes for a few days a year on items such as clothing and school supplies, usually to garner the favor of overtaxed parents struggling to raise kids and to give mom and pop an incentive to frequent overtaxed downtown enterprises struggling to make profits. So wouldn't this be appropriate for all of us, who struggle every day to be allowed to keep our money, on that day on which we celebrate our freedom?

Mar 31, 2010

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Edward Hudgins