“If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own,” President Obama told a Virginia crowd last Friday. “Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The point … Continued
An article GlobalSecurity.org published last September defends [drone] technology: [D]rones are considered one of the most sophisticated of modern-day weapons — more precise than regular missiles — and have the ability to verify targets without risking the lives of pilots. A recent study conducted by the New America Foundation shows that … the civilian casualty rate [from … Continued
‘I have a First Amendment right to free speech!’ is the refrain of legion politicians, pundits, town hall debaters, and Internet commenters. The charge that said right has been usurped is frequently leveled in cases of voluntary association between private individuals and entities. The imbroglio following MSNBC’s termination of Pat Buchanan earlier this year was a good example. … Continued
Common sense teaches that the world would be a better place if people were more informed about it. Scientists with the fervor of corner preachers exhort anyone who will listen to take an interest in scientific matters. Astrophysicist Carl Sagan wrote in The Demon Haunted World, for example, that: the consequences of scientific illiteracy are far more dangerous … Continued
Like most totalitarian regimes, Iran’s leadership is concerned first and foremost with self-preservation and survival. President Ahmadinejad and Grand Ayatollah Khamenei may like to maintain the revolutionary national creation myth by defying the West. Yet in the final analysis, both men surely understand that the deployment of an Iranian nuclear weapon would take away the … Continued
New York Times columnist David Brooks published a new article yesterday entitled “The Follower Problem” that laments that Americans don’t recognize “Just Authority” anymore. His article begins celebrating the grandness of America’s memorials to Lincoln and Jefferson who are “presented as the embodiments of just authority.” But “the monuments that get built these days are … Continued
“I don’t care because it doesn’t affect me.” While speaking recently with a good friend of mine, an anti-drug war activist, she said that phrase frustrated and angered her more than any other. Hers is a common grievance among intellectuals and activists concerned with social welfare. The great dream of Marx and other socialists was … Continued
On March 1, Nick Hanauer–Amazon’s first nonfamily investor–delivered a speech at a TED University talk about income inequality in the United States. According to National Journal: You can’t find that speech online. TED officials told Hanauer initially they were eager to distribute it. “I want to put this talk out into the world!” one of them … Continued
