April 2006

European diplomats, who courted Iran in an attempt to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program, regret that "diplomacy" did not dissuade Iran from its plans. But this failure was foreseeable.

In recent months, Congress has raised concerns over the president's use of warrantless wiretaps and his approval of a proposed take-over of major U.S. sea ports by a United Arab Emirates-owned company. In the case of warrantless wiretaps, the president is criticized for the excessive use of power. In the case of his permissive handling of the ports deal, the president is criticized for the failure to use power.

The recent cartoon controversy has tested America's willingness to defend one of its constitutionally protected rights: the right to speak freely. In recent months, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons depicting Mohammad and ridiculing the teachings of Islam. Islamic fundamentalists responded with violent protests, death threats, and demands for apology. In a valiant effort to express solidarity and support for the principle of free speech, other newspapers across Europe joined the crusade by republishing the cartoons.

On August 6, 1945 the American Air Force incinerated Hiroshima, Japan with an atomic bomb. On August 9, Nagasaki was obliterated. The fireballs killed some 175,000 people. They followed months of horror, when American airplanes firebombed civilians and reduced cities to rubble. Facing extermination, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. The invasion of Japan was cancelled, and countless American lives were saved. The Japanese accepted military occupation, embraced a constitutional government, and renounced war permanently.

According to Objectivism, the principle of property rights is a cornerstone of a free society. The right to property is the recognition that human life requires material goods, and that an individual has ownership over the goods he produces.

The principle of property, once accepted ubiquitously in this country, has been under attack for over a century. The expansion of "eminent domain" is one example.

In launching Google.cn on January 25th, the beloved search engine caved in to the Chinese government's demand that it block politically "sensitive" content from searches. Now, if a Chinese web surfer wants to learn, for instance, about the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square, he will find 13,600 pages of government-sanctioned myths--with 1,566,400 pages, those containing the politically dangerous truth, omitted.

If your college campus is anything like mine, there are probably at least a few posters around declaring the evils of war and exhorting everyone to work for "world peace."

It's not a new call. For centuries, people have worked and prayed for world peace, but it hasn't happened yet. Why has this goal never been achieved in spite of everything that people have tried to do to reach it?

This January, the Islamic terrorist organization, Hamas, won the Palestinian elections by a landslide. It now effectively controls Parliament. President Bush responded to the election by complimenting the democratic process. "You see," he said, in a line quoted by Time Online, "When you give people the vote, give them the chance to express themselves at the polls and they're unhappy with the status quo, they'll let you know...I like the competition of ideas. I like people who have to go out and say, vote for me, and here's what I'm going to do.

Last January, Hamas won an overwhelming majority in parliamentary elections for the Palestinian Authority. The victory of this terrorist organization, whose explicit goal is to wipe Israel off the map, has shocked the world. Why are the leaders of the Western world so surprised by this development? Why did Hamas win, despite the predictions of all the experts?