Sydney Williams

There is nothing wrong with “blowing the whistle” on someone doing something corrupt or unethical. In fact, it is our moral obligation to be the “rat” in such instances. For example, whistleblowers regarding the cover-up on Benghazi and the harassing

Life is an experiment. We begin as infants. Everything that comes later is untried, at least in our own experience, thus everything we face is new – every time we pick up the phone or cross a street. Almost exactly

“The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits”; that was the title of an opinion piece in the New York Times in September 1970 written by Milton Friedman… and sounding like Calvin Coolidge.  It was received by some with

Paul Ryan’s call for fiscal sanity in early 2010 with his “Roadmap for America’s Future” was a rare voice of reason that periodically emanates from the asylum that masquerades as Congress. That he did so when he was barely 40

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas may not have advanced the cause of defunding ObamaCare on last Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, with his rhetorically fluent arguments on the floor of the Senate (and his still standing at the end), but

On Friday, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its “fifth Assessment report.” Climatologists from around the world have spent much of the week in Stockholm debating the thirty-odd page document that will summarize the (approximately) 2000-3000

Thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the generally mis-defined concept of American exceptionalism has again come to the fore. In last week’s New York Times, Mr. Putin displayed his lack of knowledge of the United States’ founding. Toward the end

The cover of New York magazine, for the issue dated September 29, 2008, depicted a trader on the NYSE, his right hand covering his face, which has been thrown back in despair. The lead article was entitled “The Great Shakeout: Goodbye Masters

In the real world, demand affects cost – the higher the price, the fewer the takers. In President Obama’s Washington, there is the belief that government policies – not markets – can better influence price, at least as far as

Armed insurrection, as Egypt is experiencing, is unlikely in America, but there are threats to democracy, many of which are more subtle. As much as anything, the founding fathers feared that too much power might accrue to any one individual

A fundamental premise of the coming together of the American colonies in 1776 was that a diverse people from myriad heritages with differing religious beliefs could flourish, as long as freedom prevailed. That demanded a government with limited powers, and,

The title is borrowed from Edwin Fadiman’s 1970 book. But the concern it expresses goes back almost two thousand years to the Roman poet, Juvenal. He became known as the first to use the term, Quis custodiet ipros custodes?, which literally

Because of myriad scandals inflicting his second term, it has become common for many on the Right to compare Barack Obama to Richard Nixon. Both had been re-elected with majorities; though Mr. Obama’s margin of victory paled in comparison to

I thought about a graveyard At the bottom of the sea Of unmarked graves in Arlington. No, freedom is not free. Kelly Strong, 1981 (Written when in high school; later attended USCG Academy) Freedom is not free. Freedom is the

According to Ronald Ehrenberg, economist and professor of labor and industrial relations at Cornell, tuition at selective private colleges and universities has grown at two to three percentage points over the rate of inflation for over a century.  However, “it

A libertarian friend, when asked about term limits, replied that if he had to make a choice he would opt against them, regardless of how many years one candidate had been in office. People should have the right, it was

I was reminded of Mark Twain’s appropriate comment (or maybe it was Disraeli’s?) when reading an article in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, entitled “Government Payrolls are Facing New Pressures.” Somewhat hyperbolically, the author Sudeep Reddy writes: “The cuts in the public

“I am for economy. After that I am for more economy.” Generations of Americans have been taught that it was a frugal, laissez-faire, “Silent Cal” who served as our 30th President. “Weaned on a pickle,” was the way Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Niall Ferguson subtitles his most recent book The Great Degeneration, “How Institutions Decay and Economies Die.” It is a short treatise on the way in which well-intentioned political leaders can cause the failure of that which they have been charged with