According to a recent front-page story in the New York Times, the latest innovation of a particularly ambitious segment of the upwardly mobile American middle class is the replacement of the old-fashioned summer camp with getting-into-college camp.  In proportion as the Times is ignorant of One Big Thing, its editors are highly knowledgeable about many...

As far back as the 1970’s, shortly after the feminist movement was launched, it was estimated that as many as 30 million American women were taking tranquilizers.  That was almost half of the female population at the time.  In 1975 alone, more than 103 million prescriptions for tranquilizers were written. By the 1980’s, prescription levels...

Vladimir Putin reacted swiftly to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s criticism of Russian democracy following the Russian president’s reelection on March 14.  The exchange indicated increasing tensions in U.S.-Russian relations, tensions that may have as much to do with the Bush clan’s business interests as they do with the geopolitical interests of the two...

Years ago, when we were very young and contributing promiscuously to the reviews departments of various intellectual publications, a misguided editor sent me a review copy of a leftist rant by an author whose name I have long since banished from memory, while clearly recalling the title.  It was The Dying of the Light—taken, of...

When family and culture are under constant attack, there sometimes seems to be no greater enemy than the American Civil Liberties Union.  Yet, when Washington is busy expanding the welfare/warfare state, sometimes only the ACLU seems willing to confront Leviathan.  What is someone who loves both liberty and community to do? There is no reason...

In his autobiography, A Season For Justice, Morris Dees describes his 1967 epiphany in snowbound Cincinnati.  Dees was, at the time, a millionaire 31-year-old lawyer, salesman, and publisher.  While he had “sympathized with the Civil Rights Movement,” he “had not become actively involved.”  By the time he arrived in Chicago, however, he was determined to...

Critics have castigated the Bush administration’s nation-building venture in Iraq as a manifestation of U.S. imperialism.  That is an apt description of the Iraq mission, as well as the ongoing missions in Bosnia and Kosovo.  America’s nation-building bureaucrats are not pursuing just any kind of imperialism, however: It is a distinctly left-of-center variety.  As the...

Mark Steyn once told me a revealing story about Conrad Black’s “conservative” Canadian national newspaper, the National Post.  It seems star columnist David Frum had ventured this evaluation: “The Post has a problem.  It was started to save Canada, but Canada isn’t worth saving.” Ah, the authentic voice of the Canadian neoconservative!  Or, as English...

If you are looking for a reason to vote for Ralph Nader, the way both parties are handling the “gay marriage” issue should give you lots of data.  John Kerry, when asked his opinion of “gay marriage,” looks like a dog getting a bath, as Chris Hitchens puts it.  Kerry says he personally opposes “gay...

Freedom of speech is a good thing.  It is one of those very rudimentary good things, however, like sewage disposal and ballot voting, that civilized societies impose on uncivilized ones when engaged in the business of nation-building.  Civilized societies, taking freedom of speech for granted for themselves, have always delighted in that pearl of great...

Over the course of the last millennium, the populations of Europe (including Russia) and its Western offshoots (including the United States) grew explosively.  Fueled by the agricultural and industrial revolutions that they pioneered and the raw materials of the New World that they settled, combined European-derived populations grew from less than one sixth to one...

Last November’s “Rose Revolution” in the Caucasian republic of Georgia made political bedfellows of an unlikely couple: George W. Bush and billionaire “philanthropist” and global meddler George Soros.  The apparent cooperation between the Bush administration and Soros in backing the ouster of President Eduard Shevardnadze seems all the more bizarre in light of Soros’ stated...

More than three years have passed since then-treasury secretary nominee Paul A. O’Neill made one of the first of his now-famous public exposés.  To the smug applause of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee and muffled chortling, he boldly exclaimed during confirmation testimony that he was not planning simply to reform the corporate income tax; he...

For over a decade, the Roman Catholic Church has been in deep crisis over the issue of sexual abuse by Her clergy.  That some priests had molested or raped children was indisputable, but just how many had offended?  The numbers are more than a simple matter of statistical curiosity.  While everyone agrees that “one case...

The personal saving rate in the United States is alarmingly low.  The average person saved about nine percent of his disposable (after-tax) personal income in the mid-1980’s, about five percent in the mid-90’s, but only about two percent so far this decade.  These very low rates of saving restrict investment, which, in turn, considerably retards...

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s 4-3 ruling, in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, that the Massachusetts constitution—if not the federal Constitution—requires the state to allow same-sex marriages has thrown nearly everyone into a good old-fashioned tizzy.  The Massachusetts court somehow discovered that it was “arbitrary” and “capricious” and therefore legally impermissible to limit the...

Homosexuality is either genetically or environmentally determined.  Environmental influences are either intrauterine or postnatal.  Behold the universe of possibilities! Sexual orientation probably results from the interaction of environment and genetic predisposition, but science, so far, explains only a little.  Voluntarily choosing homosexuality cannot be discounted, although the more deeply embedded in genetics or early experience...

A closed-door meeting of nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) was held on January 16, 2003, in Washington, D.C., to consider how to “reform” “the global financial architecture” in order “to stabilize the world economy, reduce poverty and inequality, uphold fundamental rights, and protect the environment.”  This is socialist double-talk for imposing a global tax on America.  The real...

One tangible effect of all of our recent wars has been a marked proliferation of U.S. military bases around the world.  Since the end of the Cold War, the number of countries that host American bases has increased by almost one third, to over 60.  Whether this proliferation has been a serendipitous result of unavoidable...

In commenting on the reaction to Rush Limbaugh’s drug addiction, fellow radio talk-show host Michael Savage used the biblical quotation, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”  When antidrug warrior Limbaugh was exposed as a subject of a criminal drug investigation, however, it was inevitable that the self-described “epitome of morality and...

Few would challenge the observation that the level of anti-American sentiments has been rising in Europe in recent months and has reached an historic high during the war against Iraq.  At the same time, the attitudes among Arabs toward the E.U. states—with the exception of Great Britain—and, in particular, toward France have been more favorable. ...

“For if property is secure, it may be the means to an end, whereas if it is insecure it will be the end itself.” —Paul Elmer More Property, Merriam Webster’s tells us, is “something owned or possessed” and specifically a piece of real estate; or “the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of a...

American national security is a fundamental responsibility of the U.S. government.  Throughout the history of the United States, from the founding of the republic to the 21st century, Americans have debated the best way to meet this responsibility.  For much of that history, the sound advice of President Washington to “steer clear of permanent alliances”...

At the end of Hollywood’s remake of The Scarlet Letter, Demi Moore, playing Hester, rides out of town with Dimmesdale to start their new life together as happy adulterers in the Carolinas.  They must have been planning to take the Indian version of the Interstate Highway System to get there, because Salem in the 17th...

California conservatives know that the unexpectedly convincing victory of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the October 7 recall race cannot possibly result in any serious changes in the governance of this increasingly nutty state, yet most people I talk to are quietly pleased at the turn of events.  This is not naiveté but the result of...

On February 7, the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Public Integrity revealed that it had obtained a draft of proposed legislation, officially entitled “The Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003” but referred to unofficially, as it made the rounds of Capitol Hill, as “PATRIOT II.”  CPI made a scanned copy of the act available on its...

Australia has something under 20 million people living on a continent as large as the continental United States.  It is known as a place where an overseas visitor might, in some regions at least, find a frontier atmosphere.  There has been good historical reason for that.  Australia has an Outback, unique wildlife, and a legendary spirit...

While it allows many controls, the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees to every responsible, law-abiding adult the right to own firearms. To the political philosophers who influenced our Founding Fathers, arms possession by good people was crucial to a healthy society.  Thomas Paine foreshadowed current gun-lobby slogans (e.g., “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws...