The war in Iraq has left many casualties; Social Security reform is one of them. For so long, Democrats surrounded the issue with demagoguery. And now that the Democrats control Capitol Hill, Republicans seem unwilling to acknowledge, let alone confront, Social Security’s impending financial collapse. And yet the need to confront the problem has never...
The war in Iraq has left many casualties; Social Security reform is one of them. For so long, Democrats surrounded the issue with demagoguery. And now that the Democrats control Capitol Hill, Republicans seem unwilling to acknowledge, let alone confront, Social Security’s impending financial collapse. And yet the need to confront the problem has never...
“No Child Left Behind”: That poll-tested slogan is the centerpiece of an artfully designed, meticulously implemented p.r. campaign designed to portray Texas as a hotbed of educational reform and achievement. Certainly, the Texas accountability system has put some focus on teaching basic literacy skills to low-income children who may have been ignored in decades past. ...
The welfare state was born in Otto von Bismarck’s Germany, a ploy of the famed Iron Chancellor designed to counter the electoral appeal of the rival Social Democrats. Thus, social security was created in 1889 and eventually spread, under several guises, to many nations. Here, the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program (Social Security)...
Almost two years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan did the nation a great service by making Social Security safely controversial. Acknowledging the approaching problem of the huge baby boom retirement that will have to be supported by the smaller baby bust generation, Moynihan’s plan would have eliminated the trust fund created by the 1983 Social Security...
A search for the origin of the term “homeland security,” which has emerged almost from nowhere since last September, leads to the little-known Institute for Homeland Security, formed in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., in October 1999. News reports have credited the term to Defense Panel member Richard L. Armitage, former CIA officer...
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”...
On February 13, 2001, George W. Bush, three weeks in the Oval Office, issued his first official White House document pertaining to national security. The document, called a National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD), partly reorganized the National Security Council, which had been established by President Truman in 1947 and put into the Executive Branch in...
Washington’s gerrymandering of job seekers’ test scores to comport with egalitarian fantasy has given us a glimpse of the testing center of the future. On university campuses, the proctors will be apostles of Political Correctness. Armed with a high-tech apparatus that can detect signs of brain activity, they will prowl the test centers and activate...
A year after the nasty secret got out of how race-norming works on the nation’s most widely used job test, the establishment news herd suddenly discovered the story. There were spots on NBC Nightly News and the Today Show, a front-page story in the Washington Post, an editorial in the New York Times, and a...
The “Common-Sense Sociology Test” made its first appearance in the mid-1960’s. The test is now a familiar fixture in introductory sociology courses and textbooks, but in the beginning its exciting novelty instantly captured the hearts and minds of graduate students and young professors facing their first lecture halls—lecture halls filled with a student skepticism that...
When examining American or European views on the use of force and the role of international institutions, it is necessary to speak only of general tendencies. There are, of course, many exceptions to the overall trend on both sides of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, generally speaking, America’s longtime European allies have become increasingly alarmed at aspects...
The essence of conservatism is realism. Conservatives properly study the bloody lessons of history and recognize the ambiguous temper of human nature. They reject the grand but unworkable schemes for radical reform proposed by the socialist left. They favor local and state programs over federal ones, because they fear that the plans of a distant...
NATO has undermined the security of its members and created enemies that, in turn, justify further NATO interference in an increasingly unstable “security environment.”
As this is written, the United States and its NATO allies are bombing the Serbian forces of Slobodan Milosevic. This is the first offensive action for NATO, and the first time that jellied armed forces have been unleashed against a sovereign nation with which the United States is not formally at war without an express...
U.S. officialdom calls them “Special Interest Aliens,” as much because they might have a special interest in us as we in them. They are aliens from countries that are considered potential sources of terrorist attacks on the American homeland, and their numbers are reportedly growing. “People are coming here with bad intentions,” an anonymous Border...
Since his appointment as Canadian ambassador to the United States, Frank McKenna has spent many hours trying to assure Americans that none of the September 11 hijackers came from Canada. This is, of course, true, but it would be wrong to assume that Canada’s “War on Terror” has been error-free. In fact, some of the...
With mathematically predictable precision, President Barack Hussein Obama declared that last Wednesday’s slaughter of 17 American attendees of a Christmas party by two Muslims in a community center in California, and the wounding of two-dozen others, was a mystery (“We don’t know the motives)—and that the U.S. needed stricter gun laws. It was a jihadist...
Much nonsense has been spewed following North Korea’s third nuclear test on February 12. Outgoing Pentagon chief Leon Panetta declared that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions are a “serious threat” to the United States. “I don’t know how you come up with a more dangerous scenario than this,” Gordon G. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse...
Addressing the nation on Tuesday from Bagram Air Base, President Barack Obama declared the advent of a new, post-war era in the relationship between the United States and Afghanistan. During his six-hour unannounced visit Obama signed an agreement with President Hamid Karzai that is supposed to define the role of the U.S. after the...
During the late winter and early spring of 2013, yet another crisis involving North Korea occupied the attention of U.S. officials and much of the news media. Not only did Pyongyang conduct a nuclear test, but the government of Kim Jong-un issued shrill threats against both South Korea and the United States. South Korea’s new...
Donald, listen, whatever you’ve done so far, whatever you’ve messed up, there’s one thing you could do that would make up for a lot. It would be huge! Terrific! It could change our world for the better in a big-league way! It could save us all from economic disaster! And it isn’t even hard to...
It has been nearly 30 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By banning discrimination in employment and public accommodations the law was meant to minimize the role of race in the daily lives of Americans. Its result has been the opposite. The doctrine of “disparate impact” has had the astonishing...
You wouldn’t know it, based on the endless cries for more money coming from the military, politicians, and the president, but these are the best of times for the Pentagon. Spending on the Department of Defense alone is already well in excess of half a trillion dollars a year and counting. Adjusted for inflation, that...
When NATO marks its 60th birthday on April 4, there will be much celebration. Proponents will hail not only the alliance’s longevity and past successes but its goals in the coming decades. Their optimism is based, in part, on statements by the new government in NATO’s leading power, the United States. While the administration of...
Sovereignty is a people’s ability to govern its internal affairs and protect its independence against outside interference. Military power has always been the most obvious pillar of sovereignty. Clausewitz’ dictum that the object of war is “to compel your opponent to do your will” means that the victor substitutes his sovereignty for that of the...
K-12 education in America is, nationally, a disaster—that is something everyone seems to agree on. But on the local level, the parents of schoolchildren are hearing a different story. In a 1988 study an educational watchdog group called Friends for Education discovered that all of the 50 states were reporting that their elementary and secondary...
It was 1979 and the Carter administration was coming to a close when Larry Brady, the Commerce Department’s deputy director for export administration, testified before the Ichord Subcommittee of the House Armed Services panel. Run by conservative Democrat Richard Ichord, the subcommittee was trying to determine whether the Kama River Truck plant, which was built...
In the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush promised a more humble U.S. foreign policy. Five years later, that pledge has turned out to be nothing but disingenuous rhetoric used to contrast his campaign with the activist foreign policy of the Clinton-Gore administration. Of course, the Bush administration would claim that September 11 changed everything. ...
At the end of every major period of international strife since at least the Seven Years War, the claim has been put forth that a New World Order has finally arrived that makes possible the substitution of commerce for geopolitics and of law for armaments. This view came into its own after the Napoleonic Wars...
The Democratic nominee for president has finally offered the details of his campaign theme—that he will radically change America if elected—by posting on his website “The Blueprint for Change: Barack Obama’s Plan for America.” Senator Obama’s call for “change” has mesmerized America’s youth and raised unprecedented grassroots donations. Every American longing for real change that...
If I read Doug Bandow’s “Social Security’s War on Families” correctly (Views, August), the high-end projection of the cost of Social Security and Medicare would be $50 trillion. If privatization of Social Security is accomplished, we could expect a $20-trillion decrease over the next 75 years. This is using high-end figures, which generally become lower-end. ...
By way of explaining his eight failed marriages, the American bandleader Artie Shaw once remarked, “I am an incurable optimist.” In reality, Artie was an incurable narcissist. Utterly devoid of self-awareness, he never looked back, only forward. So, too, with the incurable optimists who manage present-day American wars. What matters is not past mistakes but future...
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the No Child Left Behind Act are up for reauthorization again. This process typically entails legislators tweaking the bill—a caveat here, a zinger there. Almost always, it translates into more money. Representatives George Miller (D-CA) and Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) of the Committee on Education and Labor recently...
NATO leaders concluded a two-day summit in Chicago on May 21, with the pending withdrawal from Afghanistan dominating the proceedings. According to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, two other items dominated the agenda: The alliance will continue to expand its capabilities in spite of economic austerity, and “we have engaged with our partners around...
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the No Child Left Behind Act are up for reauthorization again. This process typically entails legislators tweaking the bill—a caveat here, a zinger there. Almost always, it translates into more money. Representatives George Miller (D-CA) and Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) of the Committee ...
Outcome-Based Education, which has been around awhile under other names, has gradually become Big Education’s main answer to the chorus of cries for “reform” that followed the Department of Education’s publication of the A Nation at Risk report ten years ago. Its bland label is frightfully misleading. If this were a product in the grocery...
In backing John Brennan’s right to keep his top-secret security clearance, despite his having charged the president with treason, the U.S. intel community has chosen to fight on indefensible terrain. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper seemed to recognize that Sunday when he conceded that ex-CIA Director Brennan had the subtlety of “a freight...
The central theme of Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency has been his call for “change”—albeit often with few details about the nature of that change. There is certainly a pressing need for change in U.S. foreign policy. During the Cold War, Washington’s strategy led to security free-riding by allies and clients, caused the...
Even President Barack Obama appears to realize that Washington has a spending problem. His latest budget, delivered late and without enthusiasm, makes a nod toward restraining the growth of social programs, most notably “entitlements,” headed by Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Alas, that baby step earned a rebuke from his left-wing allies, along with a...
In 1960, my father attended what was then Case Institute of Technology. Even though it was the most expensive school in Ohio, he was able to pay his tuition with his summer jobs. When he graduated, mechanical engineers were in demand; American manufacturing was booming, and the jobs being offered to good young engineers generally...
The aftermath of the Cold War has seen the emergence of what neocon gurus Robert Kagan and William Kristol have called “benevolent global hegemony” of the United States. Throughout this period, key figures of both major parties have asserted that America’s unchallengeable military might was essential to the maintenance of global order. This period was...
To prepare couples for the sacrament and life of matrimony, Roman Catholic canon prescribes sensible requirements for “Pastoral Care and What Must Precede Celebration of Marriage.” According to Canon 1063, “Pastors of souls are obliged to see to it that their own ecclesiastical community furnishes the Christian faithful assistance so that the matrimonial state is...
Absolute control of women over fertility has been the unparalleled dream of radical feminists for decades. Millions of women now view this aspiration as their sacrosanct right and have, with the advent of anti-fertility and other reproductive technologies, exercised this new right vigorously. This feminist dream, however, is fraught with irony. Many of the very...
In 1960, my father attended what was then Case Institute of Technology. Even though it was the most expensive school in Ohio, he was able to pay his tuition with his summer jobs. When he graduated, mechanical engineers were in demand; American manufacturing was booming, and the jobs being offered to good young engineers generally...
[Adapted and expanded from the introduction to Alfred W. McCoy’s new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.] In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington pursued its elusive enemies across the landscapes of Asia and Africa, thanks in part to a massive expansion of...
“Arrogance and boldness belong to those that are accursed of God.” —Saint Clement of Rome After the end of the Cold War, reasonable people might have expected the United States to withdraw from her many foreign commitments and become a normal country again. Yet the opposite has happened. Rather than dissolve, NATO has expanded. Instead...
I enjoyed reading Paul Gottfried’s review of my book The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing (“The Rest of the Story,” January), but I was puzzled by what he calls “the obvious counterarguments” to my position. The most obvious, he claims, is that “Catholic Democrats . . . were instrumental in bringing about...
“In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.” —F.W. Nietzsche After a decade of “reform,” the public schools are at best stagnant. The College Board reports that SAT scores for college-hound 12th-graders have dropped for the fourth consecutive year, with the...
During the late 19th century, when the star of American industrial power was on the rise, protectionist Pennsylvania Congressman William Kelley declared, “A people who cannot supply their own demand for iron and steel, but purchase it from foreigners beyond seas, are not independent . . . they are politically dependent.” The 21st century has...