As we try to improve our lives with a national health care plan we must not forget the “law of unintended consequences” to which Robert Merton alerted us in 1936. Two examples illustrate the danger. Few people foresaw that federal support for poor mothers with dependent children would contribute to the breakup of black families,...

Dear Dinah: Sounds like your solo in the Boston church was a triumph. Your grandma and I wish we could have been there to hear it. We’ll make it some time. Now to defend myself against your charge that I’m just an old Scrooge when it comes to immigration. To Cain’s question “Am I my...

The one certain thing about population control is that we do not yet know how to achieve it. That needs a bit of explaining. If human beings do absolutely nothing about controlling their populations, nature will do it for us, simply because the world—our world—is limited. Sure, a few human beings might eventually be shipped...