Tag Archives | Founding Fathers

What Is the Social Contract?

Feature Article by , July 25, 2018

Michael Anton has responded to those who criticized him for his disastrous plan to have the president try to end birthright citizenship by executive order. His response is fundamentally non-responsive. He defends the fact that he used a doctored quote to back his view that the 14th Amendment, which established birthright citizenship, doesn’t actually do […]

Comments are closed

The High Road of Hope and Prosperity

Commentary by , June 20, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Did Monticello Just Evict Thomas Jefferson? Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, has just completed a restoration of the house’s outbuildings and slave quarters. The way the New York Times describes it, this is being used as an excuse to evict Jefferson from his own house. The […]

Comments are closed

“The Advantage of Being Armed”

Feature Article by , March 21, 2018

Editor’s Note: Subscribers may recognize that the article below is partially based on comments I published last year in response to a controversy within the Objectivist movement. I was motivated to expand this to a larger piece, not just because it is relevant to the wider debate right now over gun control, but also because […]

Comments are closed

Guns and the Monopoly on Force

Note by , May 30, 2017

The Objectivist corners of the Internet have been lit up recently by some new comments from Yaron Brook (executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute) about the Second Amendment and gun control. I’m not going to take on these comments in much detail because they strike me as offhand, flippant, and offensively arrogant—you really have […]

Comments are closed

Is Personnel Policy?

Commentary by , November 27, 2016

In politics, there is an old saying: personnel is policy. What a president does is determined to a large extent by the people he hires. Consider the rumors that Donald Trump is considering appointing Mitt Romney as his Secretary of State. Trump’s stated foreign policy involves a much friendlier approach toward Russia. But he’s not […]

Comments are closed

“Death to Tyrants” Is as American as Apple Pie

Feature Article by , June 1, 2016

On Glenn Beck’s radio show recently, he and thriller author Brad Thor discussed what would happen if Donald Trump becomes an authoritarian tyrant and can no longer be limited by Congress or the courts. Thor then proposed, “as a thriller writer,” a “hypothetical” scenario in which Trump would have to be removed from office. I […]

Comments are closed

The Perils of Populism

Feature Article by , March 21, 2016

Take the news that John Kasich is being funded by George Soros, a billionaire notorious for bankrolling far-left institutions, and combine that with the fact that it was Bill Clinton who encouraged Donald Trump to run for president, plus the way Trump has dominated the race with billions of dollars of free media donated by […]

Comments are closed

Gun Control and the Unconstitutioned

Feature Article by , October 6, 2015

The latest attempt to politicize a shooting has Hillary Clinton promising to impose new gun control provisions by unilateral executive action. If Congress refuses to act to end this epidemic of gun violence, I’ll take administrative action to do so. -H — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 5, 2015 This echoes President Obama’s vow, in the […]

Comments { 0 }

Why Hamilton Needs to Stay on Our Money

Commentary by , June 17, 2015

The shocking news broke yesterday that the Treasury Department is planning to kick Alexander Hamilton off the $10 bill, trading him for a woman to be named later. It was quite a surprise, since the longstanding campaign to put a lady on our paper currency has usually targeted Andrew Jackson’s $20 bill. Old Hickory is […]

Comments { 0 }

The Party of Coercion Doesn’t Understand It

Feature Article by , April 9, 2015

The left is the side of the political debate that wants more government: more taxes, more spending, more regulations, more laws. So you would think they would have highly developed thoughts about what a law is and how laws are actually enforced. This is, after all, the stuff they want more of. You would be […]

Comments { 0 }