Free Republic

Angelo Marinda was a cute little baby but he never lived to see his first birthday because he was another victim of a widespread pretense of knowledge that has produced many tragedies. Twelve days after he was born last April, little Angelo was in a hospital being treated for broken ankles and ribs. Although no one admitted abusing him, ankles and ribs don't break themselves, so he was removed from the home where his unmarried parents lived with relatives. Then came the pretense of knowledge. There is something called "family reunification services" which are supposed to change abusive parents,...

The familiar chorus of "tax cuts for the rich" has begun to ring out across the political landscape in the wake of President George W. Bush's proposals to boost the economy. The time is long overdue to expose some of the fallacies folded up inside that phrase. The dirty little secret is that those defined as "the rich" by liberal politicians include most of the American people in the course of their lifetimes. Even people who were in the bottom 20 percent in income in 1975 were in the top 20 percent at some point during the next two decades....

By Margarita Assenova (Rigor, the fourth R: Curricula in Europeon classrooms, such as this one in Aschaffenburg, Germany, have a far bigger dose of academic subject matter than those in the United States.) Because of their heavy curriculum requirements, European students regularly surpass their American counterparts on international tests. hen English is your second or third language, it's certainly not easy to take the college-admission Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT)--let alone do well on it. Yet many European students score at the highest levels in competition with their American peers for admission to Ivy League schools in the United States. Western...

When driving down the highway with my car on cruise control and the stereo playing "Stompin' at the Savoy," I am in heaven. There are millions of later model cars on the road, and no doubt some better stereo systems, as well as more scenic highways. But why should I spend energy dwelling on all that, in order to torture myself with envy? Envy used to be just a human failing, but today it is a major industry. Politicians, journalists and academics are all part of that industry, which some call "social justice." Virtually everybody is worse off than...

QUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEW townhall.comThomas Sowell (back to story)January 14, 2003Economic vs. politics The familiar chorus of "tax cuts for the rich" has begun to ring out across the political landscape, in the wake of President Bush's proposals to boost the economy. The time is long overdue to expose some of the fallacies folded up inside that phrase. The dirty little secret is that those defined as "the rich" by liberal politicians include most of the American people, in the course of their lifetimes. Even people who were in...

<p>When the case for affirmative action in college and university admissions is argued before the Supreme Court this year, the justices are likely to hear many theories, many assertions — and little evidence. People who are for or against affirmative action are usually for or against the theory of it. What actually happens under this policy gets remarkably little attention.</p>

<p>Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to rule on affirmative action in college and university admissions, will this issue be settled at long last or will the justices come up with some murky compromise, like the Bakke decision of 25 years ago, which has led to a quarter of a century of confusion, hypocrisy, resentments and polarization?</p>

When the case for affirmative action in college and university admissions is argued before the Supreme Court this year, the justices are likely to hear many theories, many assertions -- and little evidence. People who are for or against affirmative action are usually for or against the theory of it. What actually happens under this policy gets remarkably little attention. There is one study, however, that is virtually certain to be cited as evidence by those defending racial preferences and quotas, because it is regarded by liberals in the media and academia as definitive -- at least by those...

This year may be long remembered as the year when either the wisdom or the lack of wisdom of our leaders decided the fate of Americans yet unborn. The undeclared war against this country by nations harboring and fostering terrorists sworn to our destruction became undeniable on September 11, 2001. The nuclear threat implicit in these undeclared wars became explicit last year, when North Korea openly repudiated the treaty by which Bill Clinton had tried to buy them off by essentially paying blackmail to get their nuclear weapons off the headlines. Sweeping the problem under the rug worked for Clinton,...

This is almost certain to be a historic year -- whether because we begin to break the back of international terrorism, beginning with Iraq, or because international terrorism begins scoring major victories, beginning with North Korea's brazen nuclear challenge. What the future holds can be of monumental proportions, either way. While we cannot know the future, we can -- and must -- take a long, hard look at the present, from which that future will emerge. There are some scary signs on both the left and the right. Senator Patty Murray's recent silly statement, that Osama bin Laden's popularity...

Some state universities are having smaller and smaller proportions of their costs paid for by the states, and some people are talking about the possibility of their ceasing to be state universities at all. The University of Texas at Austin, for example, gets more money from student tuition than it gets from the state government. That's not counting how much money it gets from the federal government, from foundations, from alumni donations, from the earnings of its own endowment, and from other sources. More than one-fourth of the students on this flagship campus of the University of Texas system...

QUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEW townhall.comThomas Sowell (back to story)December 27, 2002Dangerous democracy? One of the cornerstones of the war on terrorism is the premise that promoting democracy is a long-run goal for creating a better world, one which will not breed so many terrorists. But a new book, "World on Fire" by Professor Amy Chua of the Yale law school, argues persuasively that democracy can be positively dangerous for some non-Western countries, especially when combined with a free market economy. While democracy and free markets have been an extremely...

<p>Behind the endless apologies of Sen. Trent Lott is the implied threat, expressed obliquely by his ally Kentucky Repub-lican Sen. Mitch McConnell, that Mr. Lott might resign from the Senate if stripped of his role as majority leader. This is denied by the Mississippi Republican, but Washington denials are not always all that they might seem.</p>

<p>Too many people have asked the wrong question about Trent Lott and have come up with the wrong answer. The real question is not so much about Sen. Lott's past statements but about the Republican Party's future.</p> <p>What will the Mississippian's continuance as majority leader mean to his party's future in the political battles ahead, including the elections of 2004? In a closely divided country, anything can tip the scales.</p>

Thomas Sowell (archive) December 17, 2002Lott, race, and hypocrisy Too many people have asked the wrong question about Trent Lott and have come up with the wrong answer. The real question is not so much about Senator Lott's past statements but about the Republican Party's future. What will Trent Lott's continuance as majority leader mean to his party's future in the political battles ahead, including the elections of 2004? In a closely divided country, anything can tip the scales. A real racist would probably have had better sense than to make the remarks that got Trent Lott in hot water....

Some years, it is hard to find enough good new books to recommend to buy as presents, so I have had to recommend old favorites like The Federalist Papers or recommend gift subscriptions to magazines like The Economist. This year, however, there have been so many outstanding books published that the problem will be to get them all into one column. For those who have long suspected political bias in the media, two more books this year have presented convincing evidence of that bias. One, titled "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg, centers on his personal experiences with CBS in general and...

Anybody can put his foot in his mouth but making it a habit is too much, especially when you are in a position where your ill-considered words can become a permanent albatross around the necks of other people whom you are leading. That is the situation now, in the wake of Senator Trent Lott's latest gaffe, his widely publicized statement that we would have been better off if Senator Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. Senator Thurmond ran on a platform of continued racial segregation. Does Senator Lott have any idea what racial segregation meant to black...

Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export. Its economic disasters have afflicted virtually every industry. In its Communist version, it killed far more innocent civilians in peacetime than Hitler killed in his death camps during World War II. Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea -- in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away...

After Senator Tom Daschle created a stir by attacking Rush Limbaugh and other conservative voices in the media as somehow responsible for death threats to politicians like himself, his total absence of any evidence made him look ridiculous. However, this charge was followed within days by another attack on the conservative media by former Vice President Al Gore. Gore named Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and the Washington Times as being "part and parcel of the Republican Party" and "a fifth column in the media," which apparently is otherwise politically unbiased. This might be a joke, given the well-documented fact...

[CAPITALISM MAGAZINE.COM]While the most immediate effect of the Republicans' election victories has been to strengthen President Bush's hand in dealing with the threat of Saddam Hussein, the most important long-run effect may be on the kind of federal judges who will shape the direction of American law over the next generation. Now that the Democrats can no longer use their one-vote majority in the Senate to arrogantly set up new and dangerous criteria for confirming judges, it should be possible to get qualified judges confirmed, without these judges having to pledge in advance that they will prejudge hot-button issues like...