ArcaMax

This week, President Joe Biden attempted to inject life into his ailing presidency by dragging out of the closet the hoariest of political cliches: "fairness" in taxation. Touting his new $3.5 trillion tax and spending bill, which would radically increase corporate taxes, personal income taxes and so-called sin taxes, Biden stated, "It's not ...Read more

In 1629, frustrated by the unwillingness of Parliament to grant him taxation power, King Charles I of England dissolved the body and had nine members arrested. He did not recall Parliament for over a decade. The intervening period, known as Personal Rule, saw Charles I govern as a de facto dictator, with only a body of councilors to advise him. ...Read more

Greek mythology tells the tale of Erysichthon, the powerful King of Thessaly. The story goes that Erysichthon, seeking wood, ordered the trees in a sacred grove to be cut. When his workers refused, fearing divine retribution, he did it himself; for this he was cursed. The curse placed upon Erysichthon was simple: unending hunger. In the end, ...Read more

This week, as President Joe Biden attempted desperately to distract from his ongoing surrender in Afghanistan and the attendant chaos in its wake, the White House turned its eyes once again to the issue of COVID-19. On Monday, Biden pressed private industry to mandate vaccination, stating, "Do what I did last month, require your employees to get...Read more

America has been wrecked on the shoals of identity.

Identity politics has been characterized casually as a form of tribalism: Americans grouping themselves according to biological or sexual characteristics, in opposition to other groups associated by biological or sexual characteristics. And there is certainly truth to the idea that such ...Read more

This week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York resigned his office. It was a stunning turnabout for a man who had been proclaimed a hero of the republic by the entire media just last year, even as he presided over the worst COVID-19 spike in the United States and covered up the deaths of thousands of nursing-home patients. Trevor Noah declared himself...Read more

Two weeks to slow the spread.

That was the original rationale for the lockdowns, masking and social distancing: Prevent transmission of the coronavirus so that Americans could be assured that we would not overwhelm hospital capacity, causing needless death.

Wait until a vaccine is available.

That was the next goal post: an admonition to ...Read more

America has a crisis of empathy.

That crisis isn't expressed as lack of charitable giving: Americans give approximately seven times what Europeans do to charity per capita. And it isn't expressed as an unwillingness to spend on a governmental level: The United States currently spends more money than any nation in the history of the world.

The ...Read more

This week, President Joe Biden was asked whether he had any message for social media amidst a dramatic rise in the number of diagnosed COVID-19 cases thanks to the delta variant. Biden immediately responded that companies like Facebook were responsible for murder: "They're killing people -- I mean, they're really, look, the only pandemic we have...Read more

This week, thousands of Cuban dissidents marched against the repressive communist tyranny that has subjugated the Cuban people for three generations. They chanted "Libertad!" and called for the end of the regime. And they carried aloft a symbol of freedom: the American flag.

This isn't a rarity. It's a common sight among protesters for freedom ...Read more

This Independence Day, a poll from Issues & Insights revealed that only 36% of adults aged 18-24 said they were "proud to be American," compared with 86% of those over the age of 65. This shouldn't be surprising. America's children have been raised in a system dedicated to the proposition that America itself is evil, a repository of ...Read more

This week, heretofore nearly anonymous hammer thrower Gwen Berry made international headlines when, during the podium ceremony for winning bronze in an Olympic trial, she turned away from the United States flag as the national anthem played. The anthem wasn't played for her, or for the other competitors in the hammer throw; every day during the ...Read more