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There are 105 results in Culture and Politics: Political Issues:

TypeTitleAuthorDate
ArticleThe Means and Ends of IslamistsEdward Hudgins11/8/2005
Description: The riots in Paris point to the true ends of Islamists. In this piece, published after the London bombings, Edward Hudgins shows that their violent means reflect their culture of death and the silence of their more peaceful co-religionists is moral abdication.

ArticleThe Next Chief JusticeDavid Mayer9/6/2005
Description: With the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist the Senate and the country will debate whether John Roberts, President Bush’s nominee to take over the top Supreme Court job, is qualified for the position. In his article ''The Next Chief Justice,'' written before Rehnquist’s passing, David N. Mayer, a Constitutional scholar and Professor of Law and History at Capital University, sets out the criteria by which this justice should be judged.

MiscellaneousMarch 2005 Soundings 3/1/2005
Description: Social Security

ArticleThe History, Economics, and Philosophy of Social SecurityDavid Kelley3/1/2005
Description: The problem with Social Security is the blithe indifference to economic reality, on the assumption that "we're all in this together." And the problem with that appeal to solidarity as a moral premise is that it encourages such indifference.

ArticleThe Hidden Danger of Social Security PrivatizationFrank Bubb3/1/2005
Description: Most current proposals for reforming Social Security provide that investment choices would be limited to diversified funds that invest in a broad range of stocks, bonds, or both. Could such personal retirement accounts become a vehicle for imposing more government control over business?

ArticleSocial Security, Autonomy, and IndependenceEdward Hudgins3/1/2005
Description: The debate over reforming Social Security reflects a deeper battle for the soul of the Republic. It pits those who would take the first steps in restoring the morality needed to sustain a free society against those who have undermined that ethos.

ArticleEpistemology and Politics: Ayn Rand's Cultural CommentaryDavid Kelley12/1/2004
Description: The events Rand wrote about are long past, the people long gone. Many of the issues and trends have disappeared off the rader screen. But her essays remain relevant today and her comments have staying power because she brought a philosophical perspective to bear.

ArticleAyn Rand at 100Edward Hudgins12/1/2004
Description: How do the most productive individuals, those who are responsible for a society’s prosperity, find themselves abused by politicians and dishonest businessmen and women? Ayn Rand sees the key in morality, and she coined the phrase that best describes the root of the problem: the sanction of the victim.

FrontReportDefining the ElectionEdward Hudgins11/4/2004
Description: Moral values, individualism, and the 2004 election.

Center NewsHudgins Tells Postal Service Privatize! 11/1/2004
Description: Edward Hudgins spoke on October 21 at a conference held by the inspector general of the U.S. Postal Service.

Center NewsDebating the Ideas Behind the War on Iraq and Terrorism 11/1/2004
Description: Synopsis of the October 22, 2004 conference: "Lessons from the Iraq War: Reconciling Liberty and Security."

ArticleThe States of FreedomRoger Donway11/1/2004
Description: Last month, Navigator reported on freedom around the world. Now, two reports have surfaced evaluating the economic freedom of U.S. states. Unsuprisingly, their different methodologies produce different winners and losers.

FrontReportKilling the Dead DraftEdward Hudgins10/27/2004
Description: Domcratic demagogy, draft fears, and national service.

FrontReportGovernment Medicine's Prejudice Against InnovationEdward Hudgins10/20/2004
Description: Government intervention in medicine costs lives.

Op-edMedicine Could Reach For Stars, FDA WillingEdward Hudgins10/6/2004
Description: Lessons from technology and space travel can be applied to the FDA. In each case, privatization may be the answer.

FrontReportReport from the Front: Two George BushesEdward Hudgins9/3/2004
Description: While John Kerry might flip-flop on the same issue, President Bush sounds like Ronald Reagan on some issues and like Teddy Kennedy on others. Only when advocates of freedom advocate consistent policies based on consistent premises will we have a chance to expand the sphere of individual liberty.

FrontReportReport from the Front: Kerry's CollectivismEdward Hudgins7/30/2004
Description: The Democratic presidential nominee is true to form in his opposition to individualism.

FrontReportReport from the Front: Obese Medicare and Fatheaded PoliticiansEdward Hudgins7/18/2004
Description: The goverment's war on obesity is a war on individual liberty. The greatest danger to the country is from obese government.

MiscellaneousJuly/August Soundings 7/1/2004
Description: Bill Clinton, John Kerry and Tax Hikes; Rural Property Rights; Whom do Americans Trust?

MiscellaneousSuggested Readings: Capitalists 7/1/2004
Description: Suggested Readings: Capitalists, Rockefeller, Gates, etc...

Center NewsBringing Western Values to Capitol Hill 7/1/2004
Description: The Objectivist Center took the discussion about the basis of a free society where it is needed most: Capitol Hill. A star-studded lineup, including Christopher Hitchens and TOC executive director David Kelley, discussed “What Are Western Values and Should We Return to Them?”

Op-edWhat Unites America? Unity in Individualism! Edward Hudgins6/30/2004
Description: On July 4th we celebrate the creation of the United States of America. But today Americans seem more divided than at any time in recent memory. In the Declaration of Independence we can rediscover the source of unity and freedom—the creed of individualism that defines this country.

ArticleThe Problem of Animal RightsShawn Klein6/1/2004
Description: Americans overwhelmingly support some degree of legal protection for animals, and a quarter of those polled say that animals should have the same rights as humans. What arguments have philosophers made in favor of such legislation and how well do those arguments hold up? Could a philosophy of law that started from a valid of theory of rights justify extending some protection to animals?

Op-edApril 15: A Day of Moral ShameEdward Hudgins4/14/2004
Description: Americans should lament April 15 - tax day -- as the day that too many of us all too willingly surrender our liberty and opportunities in life. Those who understand tax independent individuals do not want to be robbed of their money or freedom should advise their fellow citizens to rebel against the current immoral tax system.

FrontReportReport from the Front: Black Like Me?Edward Hudgins3/19/2004
Description: John Kerry's appeals to black voters are paternalistic racist. More and more African Americans are rejecting collectivist dogma for true individualism

Op-edExample of Our First PresidentEdward Hudgins2/26/2004
Description: An op-ed celebrating the birthday of George Washington and the moral example he set for all of us.

FrontReportReport from the Front: Special Interests or the Special Use of Force?Edward Hudgins2/25/2004
Description: The denouncing of special interests by all the presidential candidates is deeply hypocritical and evades the truth that government creates these special interests in the first place.

FrontReportReport from the Front: Happy Birthday Ronald ReaganEdward Hudgins2/6/2004
Description: A tribute to President Ronald Reagan on his 93rd birthday.

FrontReportReport from the Front: Principles versus Sentiments in the State of the Union AddressEdward Hudgins1/22/2004
Description: Washington Director Edward Hudgins discusses George W. Bush's State of the Union address focusing on the importance of acting on principle versus acting from sentiments. He critizes Bush for not acting on principle enough.

ArticleBetter Never?Sam Kazman12/1/2003
Description: The Precautionary Principle is the idea that society should permit no new technologies to be developed without the certainty that they will cause no environmental harm. But to stop technologies in their infancy may well mean stopping them dead. And given that so much of human survival and flourishing depends on new technologies, stopping technology means curtailing civilization.

FrontReportReport from the Front: The Witless Battle Over General BoykinDavid Kelley10/24/2003
Description: The irrationality and fruitlessness of the conservative and liberal sides of the culture war shows itself in the controversy over General William Boykin and his evangelical Christian view of America as a Christian nation.

FrontReportReport from the Front: Racist Cookies, Colleges and QuarterbacksEdward Hudgins10/3/2003
Description: If granting special privileges in the sale of cookies or promotion of quarterbacks based on race, gender or ethnicity is insulting and degrading, the same principle when applied to college admissions must be judged the same as well.

CommentaryThe Triumph of LeviathanHerbert London10/1/2003
Description: The death of communism has not meant the triumph of capitalism but of the all-pervasive regulatory welfare state.

Center NewsSightings, October 2003 10/1/2003
Description: Logan Darrow Clements in the California race for Governor

ArticleInterpreting the Constitution ContextuallyDavid Mayer10/1/2003
Description: Debate over constitutional interpretation, and Supreme Court nominees, is often conducted in terms of strict construction versus loose construction and conservative versus liberal. The participants in these debates—like the six blind men with the elephant—have all got hold of a partial truth but have missed the big picture.

MiscellaneousSoundings, June 2003 6/23/2003
Description: Republicans grow budget; Wishing the left was right about George W. Bush; Aleksandr Yakovlev on the Soviet Union; Postmoderns critize Environmentalists;

FrontReportReport from the Front: Candles and HamburgersEdward Hudgins6/3/2003
Description: Consumer Groups fight food irraditation

InterviewPower to the Purchasers! 5/31/2003
Description: Fran Smith's Consumer Alert is a free-market group that believes consumers will benefit more from a market economy than from government regulation.

MiscellaneousSuggested Readings: Free-Market Solutions 5/31/2003
Description: Bountiful Harvest: Technology, Food Safety, and the Environment By Thomas R. DeGregori; Cutting Green Tape: Toxic Pollutants, Environmental Regulation, and the Law Edited by Richard L. Stroup and Roger E. Meiners; American Health Care: Government, Market Processes, and the Public Interest Edited by Roger D. Feldman; Mail [at] the Millenium: Will the Postal Service Go Private? Edited by Edward Hudgins

Center NewsHudgins on NPR on space policy 5/29/2003
Description: Edward Hudgins, TOC's DC Director, will be a guest on the "Science Friday with Ira Flatow" on National Public Radio on Friday, May 30, to discuss space policy issues.

CommentaryWeighing War: How to Think About Iraq and North KoreaWilliam Thomas4/1/2003
Description: When should a free country go to war? William Thomas lays out the essentials of the Objectivist approach to foreign policy and war. Looking at the cases of Iraq and North Korea, the article examines the considerations that should go into a decision for war, and assesses the long term effects and legitimacy of war in both cases.

ArticleDoctors ShrugEdward Hudgins3/31/2003
Description: In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand imagined a monstrous world in which the political regime makes it easy and legal for the rapacious and the envious to steal from the productive. Not surprisingly, many producers go on strike. This nightmare scenario is now breaking out across the United States. The victims are physicians.

CommentaryBan Government Racism, Not DiscriminationDavid Kelley2/28/2003
Description: The current argument for affirmative action is undermined by government funding and corrupted by collectivist premises. But advocates of individualism should recognize that a "meritocratic" approach relying solely on grades and tests is not the answer. The answer is a rational and free society in which a wide variety of schools would be allowed to create widely varying types of student bodies by discriminating among applicants in any number of ways.

Press ReleaseReach for the Stars while Reforming NASA 2/3/2003
Description: The tragic destruction of the space shuttle Columbia Space Shuttle should not deter our quest to make space and other worlds part of mankind’s domain.

Op-edWe Must Reach for the StarsEdward Hudgins2/3/2003
Description: We should celebrate the lives of the heroic Columbia Space Shuttle astronauts even as we look for ways to allow private parties to be more involved in space ventures.

Op-edWill Government Kill the Sugarplum Fairy?Edward Hudgins12/20/2002
Description: "Drop the candy cane, step away from the punch bowl." Is this the reframe we’ll hear some day from armed food cops as they try to prevent us from committing holiday health crimes against ourselves? The "war on fat" waged by government and predatory lawyers could mean food police checking our medical records at Christmas time to determine whether we can party hardy or will be confined to celery and carrot platters. More important for a happy New Year than losing fat is not losing our freedom.

CommentaryTwo Jeers for DemocracyTal Ben-Shahar12/18/2002
Description: Around the world, unchecked power is being transferred from the one or the few to the many, and Western commentators are applauding this transfer of power. They call it a democratic revolution, which it is, and speak as though it meant the coming of a freer world, which it does not.

MiscellaneousSoundings, September/October 2002 10/1/2002
Description: Sick Days in Sweden, Urban League president Hugh Price on race in America, and Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act

ReviewThe Parasites' ParadiseHoward Dickman10/1/2002
Description: In Heaven on Earth, Joshua Muravchik gives us a history of the socialist movement since the late eighteenth century, told primarily through profiles of selected theorists, agitators, and leaders, each of whom exemplifies a critical stage or form in its evolution. A less-appealing crowd of bloodsuckers, congenital liars, airheads, and killers is not easy to imagine.

CommentaryThe Importance of BlacklistingRoger Donway8/30/2002
Description: Objectivism distinguishes between errors of ignorance and errors of morality, and between immorality and crime. As a result, Objectivists exercise moral toleration toward those whose ideas are innocently mistaken and political toleration toward those who immoralities are non-coercive. But the virtue of showing moral and political toleration does not mean Objectivists can employ nothing but arguments to weaken the forces that are destroying Enlightenment culture.

Op-edSave NPR! Not!Shawn E. Klein8/14/2002
Description: NPR doesn't need government funding

Op-edCapitalism and financial scandalMalini Kochhar7/23/2002
Description: Capitalism isn't to blame for ImClone, Enron or Worldcom. But it can save us from them.

Press ReleaseRelease: Is Greed Good?Patrick Stephens7/23/2002
Description: Is greed good? Alan Greenspan vs. Ayn Rand.

Op-edTime to Derail AmtrakMatthew Curtis7/19/2002
Description: Amtrak and the entitlement culture in America.

ArticleYou Will Volunteer!Edward Hudgins6/30/2002
Description: President Bush's USA Freedom Corps is supposed to be the vehicle by which every American devotes two years of his life "to the service of your neighbors and your nation." Remarkably, the administration's arguments for this program are based on philosophy, not pragmatism. Regrettably, the philosophy behind the program is the enemy of individualism, self-responsibility, liberty, and even benevolence.

CommentaryJohn Q. in CanadaJohn Vincent6/30/2002
Description: Ed Hudgins's review of the movie John Q. in the April Navigator mentioned the protagonist's demand for "Free health care for everyone!" Reading the review, a TOC member who lives in Canada thought it would be revealing to ask: "How would the plot of John Q. have played out here, where there is free health care for everyone?"

Op-edIsrael’s right to self-defenseTal Ben-Shahar6/21/2002
Description: The Israeli occupation is self-defense, not aggression.

Op-edGovernment Funding vs. the Progress of ScienceMalini Kochhar6/20/2002
Description: The government should not be engaged in funding scientific research.

Press ReleaseBush’s community service plan is a bad idea.Edward Hudgins6/18/2002
Description: Bush’s community service plan is a bad idea. Personal responsibility, not charity, is the true measure of moral worth.

Op-edIslamism and Modernity; Lou Dobbs is right.David Kelley6/10/2002
Description: Lou Dobbs is right. Islamism is at war with Modernity.

Op-edStar Wars and the politics of republicsEdward Hudgins5/21/2002
Description: George Lucas has made a pretty film, but his understanding of politics and republics belongs in a galaxy far, far away.

CommentaryHollywood Applauds TerrorismEdward Hudgins4/30/2002
Description: Less than six months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, a major American film, John Q., portrays a terrorist as a hero. Ed Hudgins, director of TOC's Washington office, finds it a startling demonstration of how fiercely Hollywood is gripped by the premise that altruism justifies coercion.

Press ReleaseCommunity Service Press ReleaseEdward Hudgins4/22/2002
Description: The President's community service plan is a bad idea. Personal responsibility, not charity, is the true measure of moral worth.

Op-edIs Community Service Really a Good Idea?Edward Hudgins4/22/2002
Description: Bush’s call for service is a bad idea and indicates that America may be morally bankrupt.

Op-edTo Be or Not To Be: Israel and ''Recognition''Russell La Valle4/18/2002
Description: Israel does not need recognition from Arab states. It already exists.

Op-edPowell and Arafat: An Exercise in FutilityPatrick Stephens4/16/2002
Description: Powell’s Mid-east peace trip to Israel is futile, and peace efforts will continue to fail as long as we insist on treating terrorists such as Arafat as statesmen.

Op-edTreating like as like, Arafat and The Axis of EvilShawn E. Klein3/27/2002
Description: Arafat is as much a part of the evil in the world as Saddam Hussein, and should be treated accordingly.

Op-edLiquidate AmtrakJoseph Vranich3/22/2002
Description: Liquidating Amtrak would be good business—preventing it would just be bad politics.

Op-edEnron: It's OUR ProblemWilliam Thomas2/27/2002
Description: The collapse of Enron is a problem that the market has to deal with, and we are the market.

Op-edDrugs and Terrorism--they're not the same thing.Patrick Stephens2/6/2002
Description: The government's new anti-drug ad campaign is absurd and demeaning. And it won’t work.

Op-edAnimal Rights and the circusScott McPherson1/31/2002
Description: Animals are property and giving rights to animals is too silly – even for a circus.

Op-edThe State of The Union and The Culture of ResponsibilityDavid Kelley1/30/2002
Description: 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.

Op-edA Child's Letter on the Education BillEdward Hudgins1/22/2002
Description: A Child's Letter on the Bush-Kennedy Education Bill, as reported to Edward Hudgins

Op-edReilly Steals Home: A.G. ''deal'' with the Red Sox was simply extortion.Shawn E. Klein1/17/2002
Description: Reilly ''deal'' with the Red Sox was simply extortion.

CommentaryDon't Debase Public ServiceRoger Donway1/11/2002
Description: In the name of 'national service,' our leaders have been talking about civil society as though it were the same as civil defense. Both enterprises are good in themselves, and libertarians should welcome both. But they will remain good only so long as they are kept separate.

Op-edNelson Mandela Turns his Back on Sept. 11Jim Peron1/4/2002
Description: Nelson Mandela Turns his back on the U.S. -- opposes war on terrorism

Op-edUrban Sprawl is just another name for growth and prosperityCharles Tomlinson12/17/2001
Description: Urban Sprawl is just another name for growth and prosperity

Op-edHuman Cloning: When is a person a person?Patrick Stephens12/4/2001
Description: A detailed philosophical analysis of why an embryo is not a person.

CommentaryRemember: It's not 'Infinite Justice'Roger Donway11/20/2001
Description: Linking the war on terrorism to women's rights is wrong as a matter of tactics, because it is likely to backfire very soon. But linking the war on terror to women's rights is wrong on a much deeper level, the strategic level.

CommentaryChoosing SidesRoger Donway11/13/2001
Description: The events of September 11 have changed the political landscape in America. Traditional political groups—progressive, liberal, conservative, and libertarian—have found themselves deeply split over the terrorist attacks and the war.

Op-edAgainst PacifismDamon Root11/7/2001
Description: Pacifists are actually pro-war.

Op-edOn Trading Security for LibertyWilliam Thomas10/16/2001
Description: As the Administration proposes and Congress debates new laws to improve the safety of our skies, our cities, and our factories, let us encourage the principled, creative, and energetic defense of our liberty. But let us also take diligent care that liberty remains our sovereign principle, and our way of life secure.

Op-edBurning Stupid: Bad Forest Management in the WestCharles Tomlinson9/6/2001
Description: Bad forest management practices have increased the devastation of fire on western lands.

Op-edAnti-globalism and NihilismWilliam Thomas7/25/2001
Description: The recent surge of anti-globalism protests are examples of nihilism in practice.

CommentaryThe Internet in Closed SocietiesPatrick Stephens7/1/2001
Description: The World Wide Web may not be the instrument of freedom that had previously been anticipated, according to Patrick Stephens, since it can often be censored as easily as a telephone.

Op-edNASA is right to deny passage to ''Space-tourist.''Tim Richmond6/22/2001
Description: Contracts are contracts--even in space.

CommentaryThe Poughkeepsie AccordsRoger Donway6/1/2001
Description: If conservatives and libertarians combined forces, more victories would be won for freedom. Roger Donway sets forth a list of points on which these two groups might agree and then asks what policies would follow.

Op-edHuman Cloning is good for all of usPatrick Stephens4/3/2001
Description: Human cloning, like any technology, is a boon to mankind.

CommentaryThe Corruption of DemocracyDavid Kelley4/1/2001
Description: It is not money that is corrupting American democracy, says TOC’s executive director, David Kelley. It is the collectivist philosophy underlying many contemporary views of democracy.

Op-edOp-Ed: The Moral Necessity of Missile DefenseJames S. Robbins2/22/2001
Description: The government must pursue a missile defense program.

CommentaryMorality and PoliticsDavid Kelley2/1/2001
Description: A nation's political trends are governed by a host of factors, the most fundamental of these being the moral factor, according to TOC's executive director, David Kelley. In this commentary, Kelley illustrates his point by showing how morality permeates the seemingly pragmatic debate over Social Security privatization.

ArticleIdeological Differences and Political EvolutionDavid Kelley1/1/2001
Description: With both presidential candidates advocating education plans, health-care plans, and tax-cut plans, and parading their religiosity, voters might be excused for believing that Election 2000 presented an arbitrary choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In these two articles, however, David Kelley and Patrick Stephens argue that an important difference did exist between the philosophies of the two main candidates, while Roger Donway contends that a country seeking ordered liberty should not want transcendent leaps in its politics.

CommentaryPolitical Correctness Still Runs RampantDonald Cooper1/1/2001
Description: Though political correctness is not much discussed anymore, it is quite prevalent on America's college campuses. In this commentary, Donald Cooper recounts two recent battles.

LettersLetters: Allotting Blame for Today's Health-Care Crisis (Sept 2000) 9/7/2000
Description: Letters about the problems of the health care system

ArticleDoes America Have a Human Rights Problem?Roger Donway4/1/2000
Description: A sidebar to the Lands of Liberty 2000.

InterviewCEI's Fred Smith is Marketing the Market 3/1/2000
Description: An exclusive interview with Fred Smith, founder and president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, wherein we learn how CEI puts ideas into action to curb and reverse the growth of collectivism and statism.

ArticlePariah PoliticsRoger Donway3/1/2000
Description: Because political campaigns are won by assembling coalitions, an increasingly common political tactic is to insist that one's opponent renounce the support of some sizable group. Typically, the reason put forward is that the views and behavior of the designated group make it so reprehensible that any association with it is morally unacceptable.

InterviewMarketing the Market 3/1/2000
Description: An outtake from "CEI's Fred Smith is Marketing the Market," an interview with CEI founder and president Fred Smith, published in the March 2000 Navigator.

ArticleYou Can Go Your Own WayPatrick Stephens12/1/1999

LettersLetters: Politics and Personal Happiness (Dec 1999) 12/1/1999
Description: Letters in response to Patrick Stephens' article, 'You Can Go Your Own Way', where he claims that current electoral politics have little effects on one's personal life.

InterviewThe East is Ready 3/1/1999
Description: Ross H. Munro journalist and China expert warns: "Chinese [have been] walking through America's best nuclear weapons laboratories and picking up documents because scientists and/or military officers were trying to ingratiate themselves." Munro believes that China seeks to dominate Asia. Find out more, and how the United States should respond.

ArticleLibertarian Answers to Conservative ChallengesTibor Machan12/1/1998
Description: A response from Tibor Machan to three common attacks on free-market ideas from conservatives and neo-conservatives.

Center NewsBidinotto Builds Bridges to Libertarians 3/1/1998
Description: An account of Robert Bidinotto's highly successful talk in Washington, D.C.: 'Building Bridges between Objectivists and Libertarians'

ArticleThe Culture Contemplates FreedomRoger Donway10/1/1997
Description: An analysis of the misinterpretations and distortions of the reviews of What It Means To Be a Libertarian by Charles Murray and Libertarianism: A Primer by David Boaz.

ArticleAltruism and CapitalismDavid Kelley1/1/1994
Description: An article on altruism and capitalism by David Kelley of the Objectivist Center.

  
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