Higher education can be a path to a successful life. Yet many successful people did not graduate from college — and many unsuccessful people have impressive degrees. So who should go to college? And who should pay for it? Let’s start by imagining an average student who wants to go to college but has no […]
Free College Tuition Is a Moral Issue [Good Life series] Read More »
It apparently needs to be repeated repeatedly. Moreover, I am not myself a conservative. I am a liberal in the classical sense or, in the terminology that has become common in the USA, a libertarian in philosophy. And neither were Hayek and Rand. Further: Why do so many conservatives oppose free markets? Source: Milton Friedman,
Milton Friedman was not a conservative Read More »
Grégoire Canlorbe interviews Howard Bloom, who argues that Islamic religion is inherently violent. Gatestone Institute. Mustafa Akyol argues, by contrast, that politics has poisoned Islam. The New York Times. Virginia Murr provides an overview essay on the major theologian of Islamism, Sayyid Qutb. Rockford University. Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues that Islam needs a Reformation. The
Islam politicized — round-up of readings Read More »
Consider the death of a right-wing dictator. Chile’s brutal Augusto Pinochet died in 2006: “In 2011, the Chilean government officially recognized 36,948 survivors of torture and political imprisonment, as well as 3,095 people killed or disappeared at the hands of the military government.” I was no fan of then-president George W. Bush. Yet his White
Two dictators’ deaths — responses from Bush, Trump, and Trudeau Read More »
1. The modern economic debate: Should free-markets or socialism replace feudalism? [Late 1700s to early 1800s] 2. Free-market-ish experiments run in many countries (USA, New Zealand, etc.) — all generally successful [1800s and 1900s] 3. Socialist experiments run in many countries (Soviet Union, China, etc.) — all failures. [1900s] 4. At the same time, Third
Eight steps to Trump Economics Read More »
Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State (1871) Chapter 1 Who is right, the idealists or the materialists? The question, once stated in this way, hesitation becomes impossible. Undoubtedly the idealists are wrong and the materialists right. Yes, facts are before ideas; yes, the ideal, as Proudhon said, is but a flower, whose root lies in
Bakunin’s God and the State [text] Read More »
From National Post, during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: International tensions spilled into competition on Friday when an Egyptian judoka refused to shake his Israeli competitor’s hand following their bout at the Rio Olympics. Or Sasson stepped forward to shake Islam El Shehaby’s hand after defeating the Egyptian fighter, but El
Olympics, Israelis, Islamists Read More »
The long-term estimated death toll from the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India is about 15,000 people. To put that in context, consider that the estimated immediate death toll from the Soviet Union’s 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster is 4,000. The death toll from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear radiation leak in 2011 is zero. And the death toll
The Bhopal Chemical Spill Disaster — Who Is to Blame? [Good Life series] Read More »