Articles

Republicans Said What They’d Do, and Did What They Said

Media coverage tends to emphasize presidential politics, but the real center of governmental action these days is on Capitol Hill. The present Congress already has produced more legislative and attitudinal change than any Congress in a quarter of a century. Moreover, the record shows that members of the Republican majority did something their critics cannot honestly deny: they kept their Read More ›

The Teaching of History? “It’s History!”

Cicero wrote that “Not to know what happened before one was born is to remain a child.” But, hey, who was Cicero, anyway? Don’t ask too many college students these days, they probably won’t know. Why would they? Instruction in history is dying out. In the vernacular, “It’s history.” No wonder a Hearst Corporation study showed that 45% of those Read More ›

A Modest Proposal: Should We Change Our Minds About Infanticide?

The way you corrupt a civilization’s moral standards is seldom by frontal attack. Instead, you employ surveys and supposed scientific studies that shake people’s sense of certainty in the old verities. You unearth some exceptional cases that makes the traditional standards seem unjust, and then you advertise those instances as representative. You change the meanings of words, as George Orwell Read More ›

Fiber Keeps its Promise

Editor’s note: Four years ago, Forbes ASAP published its first issue with a stunning prophecy by contributing editor George Gilder. Fiber optics, said George, had the potential to carry 25 trillion bits per second down a single strand. This represented a ten-thousandfold leap in carrying capacity over the 2.5 billion bits “barrier” long assumed by most experts in the field. Read More ›

Nation’s Capital Lists its New Year’s “Irresolutions”

The imminent often takes precedence over the important in life, but especially now in our politics. Instead of coming up with a list of New Year’s Resolutions for 1997, it appears that our public leaders are putting together a list of New Year’s Irresolutions. At the top of the list is Social Security reform. The advisory council on Social Security Read More ›

The Greatest Political Idea of All Time

Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota — America is at peace, the world’s superpower and more prosperous than ever. Surely we are too complacent to give proper thanks for our blessings. It will be a rare civic official who makes a 4th of July speech anywhere across the land today, because almost no one wants to hear one, and the politicians are Read More ›

Budget and tax issues could land Kemp vice-presidential slot

The great economic debate of 1996 is already roiled by divergent interpretations of budget plans, but now Jack Kemp and the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Policy, which just reported, are attempting to direct top attention to the still more volatile subject of tax reform.The report arrives in a capital stalemated on economic policy. In 1992 the voters Read More ›

They’re All Guilty of Politics; So What?

There is only one way to avoid future brawls over ethics in Congress like the ones going on now, and it is not–as GOP Congresswoman Sue Myrick from North Carolina has proposed–to make it a crime to “lie” in campaign ads or on the floor of Congress. When such a law is passed, Congressmen will be arresting each other literally Read More ›

Intelligent Design vs. Materialism

In Melvindale, Michigan, a blue collar suburb of Detroit, the school board held a tumultuous public hearing this week that seems to have caught everyone by surprise. The Board chairman, John Rowe, a former science teacher who now directs nuclear medicine and radiology at an area hospital, started with what he thought was a reasonable idea: Let students know that Read More ›

One Politician Whose Character Counted

The apartment on Seattle’s First Hill was nice, though modest, like its occupant, but it also had an inspiring view out over the city Joel Pritchard treasured. He said last recently, “Almost every place with the most meaning in my life is within sight,” and that surely included Queen Anne Hill and Bainbridge Island, lands laden with childhood reveries. These Read More ›