by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. I’ve grown fond of saying that the world would be a much better place if we had many more real conservatives and liberals. For example, imagine how much public life would improve if we had many more people who were as tolerant and compassionate as a lot of “liberals” claim to be. Many people embrace another ideology (e.g., libertarian) or have a de facto lack of ideology (e.g., some forms of…

by Jason Arp In the committee chambers of my council recently we heard something that could significantly affect the future of my city and the surrounding 11-county area. A veteran councilman announced there would be a discussion in January of a new tax to be collected by way of an increase in the Community Economic Development Income Tax. To the untrained ear, this is gobbledygook, another tax, blah, blah, blah. However, this will have so…

by Tom Charles Huston The original concept of the Electoral College was that each state by popular election or through its state legislature would select its best men who would consult among themselves and cast ballots for the two men in the country they deemed most fit to hold the presidency and vice presidency of the United States. That philosophy lasted through one election cycle: the first in 1788. Four years later, party influences were…

by T. Norman Van Cott A recent letter to my hometown newspaper included an erroneous assumption regarding the now decades-old debate about the U.S. embargo on Cuba. Debaters, both pro and con, take it as given that Cubans would be inundated with things American should the embargo be lifted. Nothing could be further from the truth. For left-liberal opponents of the embargo, the error probably traces to wishful thinking — it seems they always want…

by Andrea Neal Sept. 11, 2001. The very mention of that date sends chills down the spine of all Hoosiers, indeed all Americans, who lived through it. It was the day that terrorists from the Middle East turned commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction, killing nearly 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on board four hijacked planes. “It was the first shot in the global war on terrorism,” reflects Teri…

by Tom Charles Huston History may not repeat, but it forewarns. James G. Blaine was the preeminent Republican of his time. Speaker of the House of Representatives, United States Senator, Secretary of State during the brief presidency of James Garfield and unsuccessful candidate for the White House in 1884, Blaine was known by his friends as “the Plumed Knight” and by his enemies as the “Continental Liar from the State of Maine.” Blaine was an…

George C. Parker, a character to whom you will be more fully introduced later, would relish the ongoing discussions of how supposedly earmarked or set-aside funds can be spent by Indiana mayors. Few issues are so loaded with misconception, a specialty of Mr. Parker. It is an assumption of our municipal governments that city officials cannot hide behind walls of legal and accounting abstractions to lie about public finance. That assumption is being tested in…

by T. Norman Van Cott, Ph.D., and Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. The October 1997 death of Roberto Goizueta, the former CEO of Coca-Cola who fled Cuba in 1961, and the recent death of Fidel Casto, Cuba’s president for life, offers an opportunity to make a telling comment on the Cuban economy. To wit, the corporate regime of a single Cuban emigrant generated sufficient wealth to more than double the average living standard of Cuba. The market…

by John Pickerill For some, the good news from the election was that Hillary Clinton wasn’t elected as President. For others, the bad news was that Donald Trump was elected President. The reality, however, is that not one vote has yet been cast for President of the United States. When you were voting you might have missed the fine print that read, “. . . a ballot cast for the named candidates for President and…

by T. Norman Van Cott, Ph.D. Some years ago, I saw television advertisements by the lumber and wood products firm Weyerhaeuser Corporation. The ads began by showing Weyerhaeuser employees having just finished clear-cutting a mountainside in the Pacific Northwest. The next portion of the ad showed other Weyerhaeuser employees tromping up and down the clear-cut mountainside planting tree seedlings. The final portion showed Weyerhaeuser aircraft flying over the mountainside fertilizing the seedlings. Before you start…