Ray Williams: The Cult Of Ignorance In The United States: Anti-Intellectualism And The "Dumbing Down" Of America

The rise of the idiot in America.  There is a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in American culture. It's the dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility. Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, says in an article    ... MORE

Ilya Somin: The Future Of Originalism After Scalia

A long-term war of attrition.     Prominent legal scholar Eric Posner recently argued that originalism is likely to fade away in the aftermath of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, its leading advocate on the Supreme Court. In Posner’s view, the Supreme Court is virtually the only significant audience for originalist constitutional arguments, and it is      ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Sloppy Language And Thinking

Words mean things.      George Orwell said, "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." Gore Vidal elaborated on that insight, saying, "As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate." And John Milton predicted, "When language in common use in any country  ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Random Thoughts On The Passing Scene

Musings of a wise man.    Will this November's presidential election come down to a choice between a felon and a pied piper? People who call Barack Obama a lame duck president seem not to have noticed that he is exercising more power than ever, and has turned the Republican Congress into a lame duck branch of government. The best New Year's    ... MORE

John Vibes: Watch Politicians Snap When Alternative Media Journalist Jan Helfeld Asks Them One Very Basic Question

Can you delegate a right that you don’t have?   Jan Helfeld is a political journalist who has been traveling around and asking politicians some of the same awkward questions that work to expose the illegitimacy of their authority. His questions were extremely simple and many times ridiculed as “stupid” by the politicians that he interviewed,   ... MORE

VIDEO: Why We NEED Academic Freedom

VIDEO: Ayn Rand - The Value Of Philosophy

VIDEO: Freedom of Speech: What Is Your Opinion?

VIDEO: Spider In The Urinal

VIDEO: The Least Free Place In America

Susan Stamper Brown: Let's Ditch Political Correctness

It is just tyranny with happy face.        Political correctness is a contradiction of reality and distortion of morality that necessitates relentless government intervention devised by those who seek to control our lives. These self-appointed Speech Sheriffs warn us that words spoken outside the imaginary perimeters they've set are judgmental,    ... MORE

F.J. Rocca: Eric Hoffer's Wisdom

He loved America's fundamental unit, the individual. May 21st marked the 32nd anniversary of the death of American philosophic icon, Eric Hoffer. Although his biography is somewhat murky, there are facts of which we can be certain. Eric Hoffer was a self-educated, deeply sentient observer of not only the American civilization but of mankind in   ... MORE

VIDEO: Free Speech On Campus

The Proper Way To Make Mistakes In Drug Policing

by Radley Balko.    A couple in Owego, New York was recently wrongly targeted by local police, who had apparently mistaken them for some pretty big time drug distributers. From local TV news outlet WNBF: Steven Dunlap says he was pulled over by police while he was on his way to meet some friends for pizza. He says they took him into custody at   ... MORE

Thorin Klosowski: Carl Sagan's Best Productivity Tricks

How to seek out the truth.   Carl Sagan is a well known astronomer, cosmologist, author, and most obviously, science communicator and host of the show Cosmos. His views on science and general living are simultaneously inspirational and galvanizing. Let's take a look at just a few of his ideas that are useful for all of us. Sagan was first and       ... MORE

Behold: The Atheist Ten Non-Commandments

What do you think of these?       What if, instead of climbing Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God, Moses had turned to the Israelites and asked: Hey, what do you guys think we should do? Considering the Hebrews’ bad behavior in the Bible, what with the coveting of neighbors’ wives and murdering their own brothers,  ... MORE

Mitchell Feinberg: On The Moral Use Of "Smart Drugs"

Smart is good.  Cognitive enhancement drugs (CEDs), such as Ritalin, Adderall, and Provigil, are most commonly known for their use in treating patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). But these drugs, often called “smart drugs,” can profoundly enhance a perfectly healthy person’s ability to sustain concentration and thus     ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Is Thinking Obsolete?

The evidence is mounting.     Some have said that we are living in a post-industrial era, while others have said that we are living in a post-racial era. But growing evidence suggests that we are living in a post-thinking era. Many people in Europe and the Western Hemisphere are staging angry protests against Israel's military action in Gaza.    ... MORE

VIDEO: Think For Yourself! Understanding Risk

What does a 30 percent chance of rain really mean?

VIDEO: Why Are Our Politicians So Stupid?