The Lighthouse®
Can 10 months really make a real difference in America? Not normally. But weld together a hard-left socialist agenda with the control of the White House and Congress onto the combined forces of progressive woke media, Silicon Valley, the corporate boardrooms, the entertainment industry, academia, and the Wall Street borg—all in the age of instant and intrusive communications—and it’s no wonder a country, even a nation as resilient as the United States, can descend quite quickly in ways that make America almost unrecognizable.
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By Stephen P. Halbrook (The Wall Street Journal)
If you want to carry a firearm in New York state, you need to convince a local official that you have “proper cause.” That’s easy in some counties but almost impossible in others, including New York City. Last Wednesday the Supreme Court heard arguments in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen about whether this policy is unconstitutional.
READ MORE »
By David A. Downs, Robert P. George, Keith E. Whittington (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
Calls to take disciplinary action against—and even fire—professors for saying controversial things have become disconcertingly common. Students, administrators, and sometimes even faculty colleagues demand that a professor be punished for expressing dissent publicly—and even privately—from certain widely held views on campus. Politicians and political activists have also gotten into the act, sometimes insisting that a professor be fired before the sun goes down.
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By Alexander William Salter (National Review)
Is America having a socialist moment? It’s quite fashionable to play with socialist ideas. It’s much less fashionable to be a socialist. Democrats are more likely than ever to embrace the label. Republicans strongly condemn it. If we understand that socialism is about the efficient management of the economy, it is as dead as a doornail. The economists Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek put that theory to rest by demonstrating that it’s impossible for socialism to out-produce capitalism and uplift the poor. As regulated market economies are fundamentally different from centrally controlled economies, let’s not fall into the trap of helping D.C. busybodies revive a dead economic philosophy.
READ MORE »
By Jonathan Hofer, Christopher B. Briggs (Human Events)
The rise of the “internet of things” refers, as just about everybody knows, to the interconnectedness of all those everyday items that send and receive data. But did you know this phenomenon is about to transform, not only everything else, but also the way cities operate? “Smart cities” are here. They deploy a lot of cutting-edge technologies, sensors, and physical devices—and, by design, also get a lot of “help” from Big Data. This evolution could put, and has put, civil liberties and the security of citizens at risk. Worried? You should be.
READ MORE »
By Richard K. Vedder (Forbes)
Most think the enormous growth in college enrollments in the last half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st contributed to our prosperity and high quality of life. Yet during the period, one could argue that America’s exceptionalism and its primacy in world affairs began an accelerating decline. And universities arguably played a role in several indicators of decline, suggesting Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman was prescient in suggesting in a 2003 email to me that perhaps we should be taxing universities for their negative spillover effects rather than subsidizing them for alleged “positive externalities.”
READ MORE »
By Raymond J. March (AIER)
From his National Geographic documentary to the children’s book about his life, Dr. Anthony Fauci has certainly become a household name during the Covid-19 pandemic. But the reemergence of an alarming controversy has many calling for his arrest. More evidence of the NIH’s involvement in funding “gain of function” research continues to surface, linking financial ties to highly controversial experiments. Did Dr. Fauci knowingly lie about the NIH’s role? What other involvement did the US government have with these projects? Did funding gain-of-function research lead to the Covid-19 pandemic?
READ MORE »
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Volume 24, Issue 44: November 10, 2021
By Victor Davis Hanson (American Greatness)
Can 10 months really make a real difference in America? Not normally. But weld together a hard-left socialist agenda with the control of the White House and Congress onto the combined forces of progressive woke media, Silicon Valley, the corporate boardrooms, the entertainment industry, academia, and the Wall Street borg—all in the age of instant and intrusive communications—and it’s no wonder a country, even a nation as resilient as the United States, can descend quite quickly in ways that make America almost unrecognizable.
READ MORE »
By Stephen P. Halbrook (The Wall Street Journal)
If you want to carry a firearm in New York state, you need to convince a local official that you have “proper cause.” That’s easy in some counties but almost impossible in others, including New York City. Last Wednesday the Supreme Court heard arguments in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen about whether this policy is unconstitutional.
READ MORE »
The Right to Bear Arms
A Constitutional Right of the People or a Privilege of the Ruling Class?
A Constitutional Right of the People or a Privilege of the Ruling Class?
By Stephen P. Halbrook
By David A. Downs, Robert P. George, Keith E. Whittington (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
Calls to take disciplinary action against—and even fire—professors for saying controversial things have become disconcertingly common. Students, administrators, and sometimes even faculty colleagues demand that a professor be punished for expressing dissent publicly—and even privately—from certain widely held views on campus. Politicians and political activists have also gotten into the act, sometimes insisting that a professor be fired before the sun goes down.
READ MORE »
By Alexander William Salter (National Review)
Is America having a socialist moment? It’s quite fashionable to play with socialist ideas. It’s much less fashionable to be a socialist. Democrats are more likely than ever to embrace the label. Republicans strongly condemn it. If we understand that socialism is about the efficient management of the economy, it is as dead as a doornail. The economists Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek put that theory to rest by demonstrating that it’s impossible for socialism to out-produce capitalism and uplift the poor. As regulated market economies are fundamentally different from centrally controlled economies, let’s not fall into the trap of helping D.C. busybodies revive a dead economic philosophy.
READ MORE »
By Jonathan Hofer, Christopher B. Briggs (Human Events)
The rise of the “internet of things” refers, as just about everybody knows, to the interconnectedness of all those everyday items that send and receive data. But did you know this phenomenon is about to transform, not only everything else, but also the way cities operate? “Smart cities” are here. They deploy a lot of cutting-edge technologies, sensors, and physical devices—and, by design, also get a lot of “help” from Big Data. This evolution could put, and has put, civil liberties and the security of citizens at risk. Worried? You should be.
READ MORE »
By Richard K. Vedder (Forbes)
Most think the enormous growth in college enrollments in the last half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st contributed to our prosperity and high quality of life. Yet during the period, one could argue that America’s exceptionalism and its primacy in world affairs began an accelerating decline. And universities arguably played a role in several indicators of decline, suggesting Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman was prescient in suggesting in a 2003 email to me that perhaps we should be taxing universities for their negative spillover effects rather than subsidizing them for alleged “positive externalities.”
READ MORE »
By Raymond J. March (AIER)
From his National Geographic documentary to the children’s book about his life, Dr. Anthony Fauci has certainly become a household name during the Covid-19 pandemic. But the reemergence of an alarming controversy has many calling for his arrest. More evidence of the NIH’s involvement in funding “gain of function” research continues to surface, linking financial ties to highly controversial experiments. Did Dr. Fauci knowingly lie about the NIH’s role? What other involvement did the US government have with these projects? Did funding gain-of-function research lead to the Covid-19 pandemic?
READ MORE »
BOOK REVIEW: Scientocracy
The Tangled Web of Public Science and Public Policy
The Tangled Web of Public Science and Public Policy
The Independent Review, Summer 2020
The Beacon: New Blog Posts
- Does President Biden’s Spending Plan Pay for Itself?, by Randall G. Holcombe
- White Coat Waste Meets White Coat Supremacy, by K. Lloyd Billingsley
- A Woke Viewpoint on Integration, by Randall G. Holcombe
- For Want of Trucks, Christmas May be Lost for Many American Families, by Craig Eyermann
Catalyst: New Articles
- Not All Executive Orders Are Created Equal, by Brady Leonard
- Can Flixbus Save Greyhound?, by Scott Beyer
