According to Alexander Tytler in The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic, the great democracies of history have tended to last only a couple of centuries, during which time they have progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to […]
Archives for September 2000
A Watershed Election
We should be greatly encouraged by the results of the election in Mexico in early July. If for no other reason, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had been in power for 71 years, longer than any one-party rule in the world other than the Soviet Communist Party (74 years). It represents another defeat for a […]
The “End of Democracy” Debate
Unfortunately for the republic, one of the most critical issues that energize both sides of the Presidential election is the prospect that the new President will likely appoint several Supreme Court Justices, not to mention scores of Federal judges on lower benches. I say “unfortunately” because our Founders could not have conceived of the current […]
Tax Policy Confusion
One of the clearest wedge issues between Republicans and Democrats should be tax policy and it has always amazed me how Republicans have defaulted their natural advantage on this issue. Of course, the “read my lips” commitment of 1988 still haunts, but the most damaging to this advantage has been the failure (and often unwillingness) […]
Moyers’ Politics of Justice
Journalist and former LBJ aide Bill Moyers delivered the spring commencement address at my alma mater, The University of Texas at Austin. I wasn’t there, but I read the speech and it struck me as something out of The Great Society dustbin. Here’s an excerpt: “You would think a rich, dynamic nation with the […]
Hayek and His Legacy
For most of his career, economist Friedrich Hayek was the proverbial “voice in the wilderness” with his championing of free market capitalism over socialism. Then an amazing thing happened – socialistic thought was soundly defeated, at least everywhere but the higher reaches of many American elite universities. His breakthrough work was The Road to Serfdom […]