Articles

Everyone knows that environmentalists seek (among other things) to shackle energy producers with government taxes and regulations. Less well known is that some energy consumers also seek to shackle energy producers with the aim of keeping energy prices low by forbidding them to sell energy to foreign buyers. The energy…

Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s greatest statesmen, was born January 11, 1757. Here are a few of his many vital achievements.

[Click for a PDF of the full chart] Human action, whether by individuals, groups, or governments, is driven by ideas—most substantially by the ideas people accept as morally correct. Why did Rosa Parks refuse to give up her bus seat to a white passenger? Why did Edward Snowden release classified…

It is not often that a United States senator goes to the floor of the Senate to take on an author whose major works were published decades ago. But that is what happened yesterday when majority whip Dick Durbin criticized Republicans for reading Ayn Rand’s work, the most famous of…

Despite Barack Obama’s blather to the contrary, government payments to the unemployed are not “insurance.” Real insurance is a financial instrument voluntarily sold and purchased on a free market for the purpose of spreading risks, with the benefits defined by contract. For example, we know that some people’s houses will…

New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, did not wait to assume his office before brandishing the big stick of government force. Two days before becoming mayor, de Blasio threatened to outlaw horse-drawn carriages in Central Park. For half a century, these carriages have attracted New Yorkers and visitors…

Low energy costs and abundant petrochemical materials made possible by those working in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) have made the United States one of the least expensive places for chemical manufacturing on the planet. Stephen Pryor, president of ExxonMobil Chemical, explains: [M]anufacturers can make ethylene [a primary petrochemical…

Fittingly, Jobs opens with Steve Jobs receiving well-earned applause from Apple employees for the release of the iPod, a device that would, as Jobs predicted, revolutionize the music industry. Music is just one of several industries Jobs would revolutionize over the course of his career. Although it strays from essentials…

On the last day of 2013, Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor temporarily blocked the ObamaCare provision “forcing some religious-affiliated groups to provide health insurance coverage of birth control,” the New York Times reports. But the debate as the media typically present it misses an essential point: The contraception mandate violates…

Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you for your business and support in 2013. All of us at TOS wish you a productive and prosperous 2014. Keep fighting the good fight and living great life. The future is ours for the making. Forward!

Peter Thiel, who founded PayPal in 1999 and sold it to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, knows something about entrepreneurship. Among other things, he knows that entrepreneurs do not always need a college degree to succeed—for example, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Ralph Lauren, and Mark Zuckerberg dropped…

Over the past few years, producers in the chemical and manufacturing industries have rapidly expanded their output, thanks in large part to the raw materials and energy sold to them by producers using the methods of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Frackers not only help provide inexpensive energy to…

Recently Bill O’Reilly interviewed Southern Baptist megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress about the alleged “War on Christmas” and “War on Christianity.” Jeffress said: [T]he war on Christmas is real, but, Bill, it’s a part of a larger war against Christianity that's being waged around the world. And, yeah it’s true, we…

As I mentioned in a recent post, medical researchers are revolutionizing healthcare through personalized medicine based on knowledge of the individual's genetic makeup. In one instance of this advancement, according to the Associated Press, “doctors are reporting unprecedented success by using gene therapy to transform patients' blood cells into soldiers…

Although the moral justification for capitalism is not that it helps the poor—but that it protects the rights of all—a major consequence of capitalism, where and to the degree it is legalized, is that it lifts people out of poverty. One area in which this can be readily seen is…