By Don Rose. Introduction by William Astore. Charter schools, in theory, offer advantages to public schools. They’re advertised as offering “choice” to concerned parents, who shop for the “best” schools as measured by test scores and related data. They promise to hold teachers accountable. They say they offer novelty in pedagogy. But in practice…
b. traven When will we learn that the shell game is the only game Obama knows well? He wants us to believe that allowing a private company to collect all of our private conversations, and saving them for later access by the government, is not abridging our Fourth Amendment rights to privacy. He hopes we…
Daniel N. White. Introduction by William Astore. Unbeknownst to most Americans, the U.S. military has embraced special forces (SEALs, Green Berets, and the like) and has been deploying them globally to at least eighty different countries. There’s an allure to special forces and the special ops community captured in the country’s admiration of SEAL Team…
Richard Sahn In the tradition of Jonathan Swift, I have a modest proposal to improve voter ID laws: a “stand your ground” law outside of the polls. You know: the same law in Florida which helped to exonerate George Zimmerman from the charge of murdering Trayvon Martin. With a “stand your ground” law at the…
Stuart Lyle Freed former Pussy Riot members, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, have unveiled a plan to start a new organization, Zone of Law. The name, according to a Rolling Stone report, is a play on the Russian word “zone,” which can refer to prison camps. It seems that outrage in the West over their…
b. traven In his new “memoir” Robert Gates bites the hand of President Obama, who foolishly let him stay on as Secretary of Defense from the incompetent administration of George W. Bush. In Gates’s book, which lavishes praise on the steadfastness and intelligence of Bush in pushing war, Gates faults his new boss Barack Obama…
b. traven I am not a New Yorker but I do like that city. I have lived, at one time or another, in all three of the great cities in our country, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Each has its virtues and its downsides and all now seem to be in the hands of…
Alex Dunn. Introduction by William Astore. The New Year promises much misinformation about Obamacare as “socialism.” Whatever else you can say of Obamacare, it’s not state-owned or state-provided. Rather, it relies on private, for-profit insurance companies to provide health care coverage. In short, health care in the USA remains a market-based commodity. You get what…
L.N. Davout. Introduction by William Astore. Back in 1990-1991, my good friend Louis-Nicholas Davout [a pseudonym] and I debated the merits of the war to expel Iraq from Kuwait. At the time, Davout was a graduate student in Political Science at a major research university, whereas I was a captain in the Air Force teaching…
Richard Sahn In contemporary American society virtually every adult citizen knows how difficult it is to obtain medical information regarding one’s spouse, parents, or other close relatives. Agencies–notably insurance companies–are adamant about not revealing even payment data if you are not the patient. Agents or receptionists working for health organizations fiercely insist they are not…
The Contrary Perspective 