“……nor shall any State…..deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” – Amendment XIV, U. S. Constitution “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of […]
Archives for 2001
The Leading Cultural Indicator
Empower America, an organization co-directed by William J. Bennett and Jack Kemp, has just released The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators 2001, an update of the cultural barometer initiated in 1990. In an interview coinciding with the release, Bennett noted that, although some of the indicators have shown improvement, the trends involving the continuing breakdown […]
Tax Policy Revisited
In the September 2000 issue, I identified six debate points the Republicans should use in selling an across the board reduction in marginal income tax rates. All of them remain valid for President Bush’s plan that now faces a difficult challenge in the U. S. Senate, but I would now add another point and re-emphasize […]
Lights Out For The Left Coast?
California has written the book on how not to pursue utility deregulation, and now the damage is that their leaders will use the current crisis to demagogue against the concept. As Pete duPont has recently reminded us, the idea of price controls goes back at least 4,000 years and they have always failed, particularly when […]
The Consequences Of Ideas
I have just read a short book by R. C. Sproul with the same title as this essay, in which he traces the key strains of Western philosophical thought from the Greeks to the present in order to illustrate the consequences of the ideas on our present condition (a kind of takeoff on Richard Weaver). […]
It’s The Culture, Stupid!
In my October, 2000 Special Pre-Election Issue, paraphrasing Pat Buchanan, I wrote that the 2000 election was not to be about who gets what or the details of policy, but rather was to be about who we are. Now, three months after Election Day, I’m even more convinced. The post-election fight in Florida and the […]
Thoughts On Faith-Based Initiatives
Of all President Bush’s proposals to date, the most difficult and potentially most transformational is the centerpiece of his compassionate conservatism, the plan for Federal support of faith-based social programs. Fully competitive school choice and full privatization of Social Security would certainly be more dramatic, but these aren’t in the cards for awhile and don’t […]
Let’s Be Honest About Ag Policy
A friend who is knowledgeable in Federal agriculture policy recently sent me an article from The New York Times which reminded me of the failures of policy in this area and the political difficulties in dealing with them. Since the passage of the acclaimed Freedom To Farm Act in the mid-1990’s, which was supposed to […]
Quote
“This much I think I do know—that a society so riven that the spirit of moderation is gone, no court can save; that a society where that spirit flourishes, no court need save; that in a society which evades its responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the nurture of that spirit, that spirit in the […]
Historical Amnesia
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) was founded in 1995 under the leadership of Lynne Cheney and Joe Lieberman to promote improved academic standards and greater accountability in the higher education community. Ms. Cheney, long one of my heroes for her tireless work in education and the arts, now serves as ACTA’s Chairman […]