AFF's Doublethink

Politics might just be a game, but it’s still broken.

How can libertarianism guide your conscience?

Taxes are too complex for the good of the economy, too complex for families, and too complex for small businesses. For big business and for Washington lobbyists, complexity means profit.

A toast to the WASP that makes our culture work.

Any time someone tells you that one side of a policy debate favors “big business” and the other side favors “consumers,” you are probably being lied to.

The pro-life cause is making great gains, but there are still hurdles ahead.

Christians ought not get too upset by un-Christian businesses or people. They do not interfere with our ability to live as Christians. We should be afraid of government restricting our freedom to live according to our beliefs and consciences.

To deal with man’s flaws, a conservative trusts in tradition and community. He also tries to guard against the concentration of power. Milton Friedman warned constantly about the concentration of power, and looked always to the past for a guide.

What do these three lawmakers have in common? They’ve all benefited from the Republican’s win-at-any-cost strategy.

This Novak insider only needed publicly reported information and a dab of common sense to tell just how far off from the truth was much of the media’s coverage of the Valerie Plame story.

How folk Irish ditties instill a healthy distrust of authority and government power in the old and the young.

The story of the private army that, in 1892, shut down upstart western ranchers, and why the White House took its side.

An exclusive excerpt of Tim Carney’s new book The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money, now available now from John Wiley & Sons.

While Congress scampers to make new ethics rules in response to the Abramoff and Jefferson scandals, we see once again why the conservative answer to this problem is the libertarian one. Conservatism, understood in the sense of Russell Kirk or Edmund Burke, largely means acting upon the realizations that man is fallen and that power corrupts.

Why big business is as responsible for higher taxes as ted Kennedy.

President Bush has been quoted as saying, “in Texas, we don’t do nuance.” But on the issue of ethanol, the Bush administration does so much nuance that they manage to take both sides of the issue–and then some.

The federal budget is too big. It’s way too big. George W. Bush has called for total spending this year of $2.47 trillion. Here’s why corporate welfare should be the first thing on the chopping block.

The federal government owns 29.6 percent of the land in the U.S. But this land is hardly public; Uncle Sam likes to keep it fenced in.

A close examination of the political scene in Washington suggests that conservatives have far more reason to be upset with big business influence over government, while liberals ought to be pleased in some cases.

The debate over Judge Alito and the Supreme Court cannot be an honest one until this simple truth is laid bare: Roe v. Wade was a bad Supreme decision, which no honest reading of the Constitution can support.

Facing the most serious task of his tenure–making a decisive Supreme Court nomination–President George W. Bush shied away from a fight and acted with nonchalant frivolity.

A sadly entertaining peek at some of the bills Congressmen have proposed this year.

Assuming John Roberts is confirmed, Arlen Specter could very likely still shape the terms of debate in such a way as to make the next conservative nominee unconfirmable.

In political Washington we all have a problem. We take our work too seriously, and believe that politics is everything. Baseball reminds us all that there is meaning outside of politics.

Without Roe v. Wade, the issue of abortion would be left to the democratic process in each state, which is something the patrons of the Democratic Party cannot allow.

The College of Cardinals has quashed the hope that had been brewing at The New York Times, the Jesuit schools, and AndrewSullivan.com that the next Pope would not be quite so . . . Catholic.

That so many think it is fine to let Terri Schiavo die shows that Pope John Paul II was painfully correct when he diagnosed our society as afflicted with a “culture of death.”

Free trade, to the degree it means the right to dispose of your own property as you wish, is a pro-freedom idea. “Free trade,” when it involves international bodies and global regulations, is anti-freedom.

Conservatives who believe in both tradition and the free market sometimes have struggles within their heart when they see Mom and Pop shutter their store in the massive shadow of a megaretailer.

Why do Americans continue to drift towards conservatism? Because liberals continue to send lawyers and judges to their small towns to tell them how to run their lives and educate their children.

An electoral revolution took place on election day. Now the Republican party must keep its word.

The 2000 Florida voting fiasco required a solution. And clearly, the solution would have to (A) come from Congress, (B) increase the federal government’s role, and (C) involve computers.

Report from the Republican convention in New York: This election is more important than most, and the the battle lines are curiously drawn.

Many neocons spent the run-up to the Iraq war denouncing the conservatives who voiced opposition. But now their differences with the right are becoming clearer, and their continued alliance with conservatives comes into question.

Our man in Boston tells us what the national media didn’t report from the Democratic National Convention.

Appeals to privacy are, at bottom, prudential guards against the corrupt nature of the men and women in our government.

For a patriotic American it’s hard not to resent Europe, given its current anti-Americanism. But Switzerland, which still cherishes some of the gifts our nation has squandered, deserves the respect of all who love liberty.

Sen. Arlen Specter’s victory in the Pennsylvania primary is a let-down for the young conservative foot soldiers in the war for the future of our country.

How we all benefit from corporate welfare and let governement pick market winners and losers.

With the House, Senate and White House in conservative hands, the power to shape culture tempts, but should be resisted.

A report from the Democratic primary race in New Hampshire where our man on the scene has been tailing the presidential hopefuls.

A report from the Democratic primary race in Iowa featuring John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, and rainbow farms as far as the eye can see.

To celebrate the Pope, all thoughtful people who believe in freedom, individual rights or the value of life, ought to consider John Paul II’s teachings on the value of life.

Be afraid. B very afraid. State and federal judges are usurping democracy and attempting to impose their own vision of utopia.

Gay marriage is an issue where a moral laissez faire attitude has no place. You either stand with tradition, or with the liberal forces of the cultural revolution.

The old Dubliner had bought me a pint, but he had no opening to hand it to me because of the drunken Canadian waving his arms. The Torontoan spread his arms wide while shouting about Iraq, trying to express, with his wing-span, what he thought was the magnitude of President Bush’s stupidity. Finally, the old [...]

Debates among and about “Neoconservatives” and “Paleoconservatives” recently have bounced between being enlightening, mendacious, vicious, and dangerous. But easily the most bizarre aspect of the fight is the claim that neoconservatives don’t exist–that they are the hallucinations of fevered minds. < p> Regardless of whether you consider yourself neo-, paleo-, non- or just plain-conservative, it [...]

More than one million children are killed in abortions every year in the U.S., and our government sponsors, condones and protects it all. This is the single greatest injustice in American society today. Abortion is a moral crisis on or near the level of slavery. < p> This week, the U.S. House of Representatives will [...]

When our generation is old, we’ll turn to our grand children and say, “I remember New York in its last golden age.” Our eyes will get a far-off look as we’ll think about the days of low crime, rejuvenated neighborhoods, Subway Series and Super Bowls. < p> “Was mayor Bloomberg really as terrible as you [...]

Robespierre started by beheading the aristocracy. After he was done with them in 1793, he turned the guillotine on his fellow revolutionaries; the Girondists whom he thought were too moderate. Soon, he aimed the reign of terror at his own party–at those who objected to his dogma that the ends justified the means. < p>The [...]