Why are people still drawn to Marxism? Did you know it's still hot among the professoriate? I know, I know. Thoroughly discredited. But they eat that stuff up in the ivory tower. Brad Thompson's thesis is essentially that Marx was a great sloganeer. And he was. (I'd also argue that people have inherent dispositions to socialism.) My friend Michael Strong argues quite powerfully that -- due to academia's continuing fixation with Marx -- higher ed may be the "world's leading social problem."
All it takes is one mad (evil or crazy) scientist to destroy the human race, according to Michio Kaku. So does government have a role in ensuring these technologies are not used for nefarious -- even catastrophic ends?
To watch this trailer, one may get the feeling that this, while sad, is remote. These are people in a distant land, practicing a different religion, wearing different cloths, living under different rule. And yet we are so close to living in this kind of state. It's happening right under our noses.
Americans love spectacle. The biggest issues of the day are secret service agents and Columbian prostitutes. People are outraged by either side of the gay marriage debate -- and justifiably so. But we need to get some perspective. Our most fundamental freedoms are being stripped away right now.
Around the world, pockets of communists still cling to power. They're either smaller regimes run by a cadre of strongmen, or they have evolved into what has come to be known as "state capitalism." In this latter form, cronyism is considered a feature not a bug. The question for me is: will these pockets of communism linger? Or will they linger for a while, but eventually evolve into another form? And is state capitalism becoming the dominant form for the globe?
It's not just that U.S. colleges are propaganda factories. They are. It's also that they are censoring speech. We should be concerned that college campuses have "free speech zones," especially public universities.
Do you have kids or know people in college? Please let them know about this...
In a rare bit of good news, the EPA has lost in the Supreme Court. This is not a death-blow for these Gruene Polizei, but it is certainly one step towards putting the regulatory daemons back into Pandora's Box. Here's what happened...
You mean vote-seeking politicians rarely "internalize externalities"? This is a shocking claim. I mean, I would have thought politicians were all paladins marching on white horseback to save us from greedy polluters and profiteers.
I guess we have to ask: what does it mean if the world is composed of greedy polluters and profiteers?
For a long time, it looked as if China might prove Milton Friedman wrong. They have been scuttling along under one-party rule while stoking markets in various urban regions. But a taste of capitalism has given the Chinese a hunger for political freedom. The idea of individual property rights is sinking into the public consciousness now. It's no longer up to the whims of party bosses whether you can keep your property. It's up to the property owners, where private ownership is the de facto position of people fighting back against a state that has made ownership arbitrary at best.
