The big conflict in the world today isn't between Democrats and Republicans, or even the West and the Middle East. It's between the individual and the collective. For it's the individual who believes rights to be unalienable, while it's the collective that seems to consider them subject to majority rule. It is the individual who sees his own happiness as a worthwhile goal, while the collective believes we're grist for the mill of the "public good." It's the individual who sees man as an end unto himself, while the collective sees him as a means to an end for others. And it's the individual who understands that capitalism protects our liberties, even as the collective tries to obliterate them. [SmartMoney]

"As I've said on other occasions, branding is something you do to cows. It makes sense if you're a rancher since cows tend to look alike," Mr. Disney said. He added that branding is useful for things like detergent or shoes. "Branding is what you do when there is nothing original about your product." [NYSun]

Today, more than a century after Darwin and Nietzsche, 70% of Americans believe that Jesus was the Son of God. But... like every successful product, Jesus has been tailored to the demands of the market. Every denomination, every region, every class, every generation in American history has asked for a Jesus made in its own image. That appetite has been met by an army of priests, preachers, theologians, reformers, and even novelists.

If the omnipresence of Jesus in our ostensibly secular country is troubling, his malleability is reassuring: Americans seem less eager to do Jesus's bidding than to have him do theirs....

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Americans found Biblical grounds for enlisting Jesus on both sides of every debate. The abolitionist Angelina Grimke used Matthew 23:4--where Jesus attacks the Pharisees who "tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others"--to rebuke slave owners. Southern apologists, on the other hand, noted that Jesus never explicitly condemned the widespread Roman practice of slavery.

Half a century later, the socialist Eugene Debs proclaimed that "The revolutionary Savior always and everywhere stood with and for the poor," while the advertising man Bruce Barton declared, in the bestselling "The Man Nobody Knows," that Jesus "thought of his life as business." Jefferson and Emerson, Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King, Jane Addams and Aimee Semple MacPherson: From the sublime to the ridiculous, they all laid claim to Jesus.

Beijing is fearful that pro-democracy candidates will do well enough in the next legislature, in which 30 of 60 seats will be elected democratically, to upset its control of the government. To reverse its fortunes, Beijing has threatened the dissolution of the next legislature if too many people Beijing doesn't like win seats. For good measure it has launched an intimidation campaign, smearing democratic politicians and activists as "unpatriotic,"which can be code for subversion or a threat to national security....

This is what "one country, two systems" means. That attractive-sounding formula, first devised to entice Taiwan into joining the mainland, is a fiction that has allowed the international democratic community to imagine that Beijing will tolerate Hong Kong's autonomy, and democratic expansion in Hong Kong. [NYSun]

Mr. Kerry would outspend Mr. Bush on health care, education, and obviously veterans benefits. He would spend $20 billion more on homeland security,and $50 billion more on aid to states. He would spend an additional $14 billion on energy and environmental programs and expand paid volunteer programs with more federal money. According to the Washington Post, which analyzed his plans this week, Mr. Kerry has proposed spending $165 billion more on new programs during his first term than he could save by raising taxes through a repeal of some of the Bush tax cuts and shutting down corporate loopholes.

With John Edwards expected to announce his withdrawal from the presidential race today, the contest for the Democrat nomination narrows to two men--Sen. John Forbes Kerry, D-MA, and Sen. John Forbes Kerry, D-MA.

"I think we're going to see them go at it hammer and tong until the convention," said Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democrat National Committee. "We couldn't hope for two men who offer more contrast; the war hero vs. the peace protestor, the wealthy husband of an heiress vs. the assailant of the privileged class. One backed the attack on Iraq, the other opposed it. One voted for the USA Patriot Act, the other denounces it. One supported the president's 'No Child Left Behind' education plan, the other is harshly critical of it."

Mr. McAuliffe said his main job as party chairman over the next six months is to "keep the two John Kerrys focused on attacking President Bush, rather than sniping at each other over character issues."

Communist China is changing its constitution to embrace the most basic tenet of capitalism, protecting private property rights for the first time since the 1949 revolution....It signals a kind of a victory for people who believe that the state should give more respect to private property. Legally speaking, I don't think it'll change much," said Donald C. Clarke, a professor at the University of Washington's School of Law in Seattle. [Yahoo News]

Reading the lead editorial of the New York Times yesterday, one is left with the impression that Mr. Bush is to blame for the mess in Haiti and for "whisking its democratically elected president" off to Africa.... "After intervening to restore Mr. Aristide, the first democratically elected president in Haitian history, to office in 1994," wrote the Times, "Washington failed to do enough to help develop strong institutions, like an independent police force and judiciary, to sustain democratic rule."

I have the distinct impression that it was President Clinton, egged on by the Black Congressional Caucus, who deployed some 23,000 troops in September 1994 to prepare the way for the return of Mr. Aristide on October 15. For the next six years, Mr. Clinton coddled Mr. Aristide....

It is disingenuous for the Times to pin the failure of the Haitian "democratic experiment" on Mr. Bush. In our editorials in the Haiti-Observateur, we warned Mr. Clinton about the awful signals he was sending to freedom-loving Haitians who became targets of harassment, intimidation, and even assassination by the "restored democrat" Aristide. [NYSun]

Tensions with Israel are rising, as Iran fears an Israeli preemptive strike against the facilities it may be hiding from International Atomic Energy Agency inspection. That fear was based not only on the historical record--Israel took out Iraq's reactor at Osirak in 1984--but on a statement by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. (The Israeli minister said that in preparing an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, "steps will be taken so that Iranian citizens will not be harmed.") Mr. Mofaz's tough talk followed a public sermon last December in Tehran by the still-powerful former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession," Mr. Rafsanjani said, "the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world." In other words, in Iranian eyes, the purpose of an Islamic bomb is to eliminate the deterrent effect of the Israeli bombs. One big Islamic bomb would destroy Israel, while many Israeli bombs, while hurtful, would only put a dent in the Islamic world. No wonder Mr. Mofaz suggests that an attack is being planned.

The United States should demand that the new Iraqi constitution include an explicit separation of state and Islam. The threat posed by a new regime in which Islamic fundamentalism has political power is unacceptable. It makes no sense to have gone to war to overthrow a secular tyranny only to replace it with a religious one that is potentially far more dangerous to America. But to make such a demand would require the current administration to identify Islamic fundamentalism as our ideological enemy and to recognize that the separation of state and religion is a crucial requirement of freedom not only in Iraq, but here in America as well.

"You continue to complain about specific, case-by-case injustices inflicted by trustbusters without recognizing that antitrust law is inherently unjust ('Who Defines a Market?' Review & Outlook, Feb. 23). The law is arbitrary and vague but has one clear effect: It penalizes the most successful firms for the (alleged) benefit of laggards and losers.

Nearly every firm trust-busted in the past century has boosted output, improved quality and lowered prices-- the opposite of 'monopolistic' behavior. For these achievements great firms and executives have been litigated, fined, jailed and vivisected. We need to recognize that producers have a right to their property--of which their 'market share' consists--and that they owe not a single, unpaid duty or scintilla of property to consumers or rivals.

Antitrust law does not 'preserve competition'; it shackles, sabotages and expropriates the winners of competitions. It is anti- competitive. Instead of chronicling case-by-case injustices, for once you might consider examining the case for abolishing antitrust entirely."

"You are moulding somebody to listen to you, so if it means rapes have to take place in order for that person to take instructions from you, then it's OK," he said. He was so horrified that he left his job with the ministry in disgust. [Daily Telegraph]

A spokeswoman for presidential contender John Kerry called Paige's remarks "inappropriate, particularly at a time when our nation has experienced the devastation caused by terrorism." Kerry's chief competitor, John Edwards, called Paige's words "grossly offensive." [USA Today]

... commenting on the federal government shutdown, called the House Republicans "legislative terrorists" ... Asked about his terrorist comment, Kerry said, "Terrorists hold hostages, and the Republicans are holding the government hostage." [Free Republic]

"What has been most damaging, I think, to all of us about many of the actions in this administration has been the cynicism with which they have perpetrated their positions and with which they have used us to trap us and to, in a sense, terrorize us because they paralyze us," Mrs.Kerry said. [NYSun]

Even for a regime that excels in deception, the announcement by the Iranian government that nearly half the eligible voters cast their ballots in Friday's election is an extraordinary bit of effrontery. And even those Western "news" outlets that decided to pronounce the turnout "low" (the BBC, of course, echoed the party line by talking about a large turnout), did so by comparing the official numbers with those of the last parliamentary election, when more than 60 percent voted for the toothless "reformers." The real numbers are a tiny fragment of the official ones. [...] Oddly, the wild distortion of the real results does show something that the mullahs do not want us to know. They fear the Iranian people, knowing how deeply the people hate them, and they believe they must continue to tell a big lie about popular support for the regime. But the people know better. [...]

For those interested in exposing hypocrisy, it is hard to find a better example than all those noble souls who denounced Operation Iraqi Freedom as a callous operation to gain control over Iraqi oil, but who remain silent as country after country, from Europe to Japan, appeases the Iranian tyrants precisely in order to win oil concessions.

Now is precisely the time for Mr. Bush to show solidarity with the majority of Iranians who want greater freedom, just as Ronald Reagan spoke up for the people of Poland in the early 1980s. The only way to stop Iran's despotic regime from getting nuclear weapons is to help Iranians change the regime. [...] By the way, does Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage still think Iran is operating a "democracy," as he noted not long ago? Just checking.

You will have to excuse us Iranians for our lack of sympathy for these so-called reformers: Just ask yourself, as we ask ourselves, where they were while Iranian youths were being beaten, tortured, abducted, maimed, and deprived of their legitimate rights to continue their university studies. But despite our disappointment with the Khatamists, Iranians were nevertheless given an occasion for joy and pride on February 20, the date of our most recent elections, and of the momentous boycott of them. It will be remembered in the history of my nation, because on that day, Iranians showed again that we have the resolve to clear "Islamic mullahism" from our homeland once and for all. We have decided that our children must not be tormented as we have been. Throughout the day on February 20, I went to different parts of Tehran to observe for myself what was going on at the polling stations. To my great pleasure, there were only few people at any of them. Although the regime had done its best to urge everyone to participate in the elections, brave Iranians were far more determined to tell the world and the regime, again, that they are tired, and are on the verge of achieving their much longed-for change. Iranians abstained from the elections not because of the prohibition against Khatamist candidates, but because we -- almost all of us this time -- have finally realized that our goal can only be achieved "over" the Islamic republic, not "through" it. The vision of tomorrow's secular Iran will prevail, and soon. With or without the rest of the world's help, we are determined to paralyze and eventually oust the militants of the Islamic regime. This weekend showed that our efforts have nearly, after all this time, borne the fruit we have striven for all these years: freedom.

During his four years in office, Hoover followed the very policies being advocated most ardently these days by the Democrats--tax increases, trade barriers and higher spending on social programs....Also note that the critics carefully limit their Hoover comparison to the number of jobs lost. True, under Bush, jobs have declined 2.2 million, about the same as under the four years of the Hoover administration from 1929 to 1933. But in 1929, when the population was 121 million, a job loss of two million was a national catastrophe. It sent unemployment rocketing from 3.2 percent in 1929 to 23.6 percent in 1932. In 2004, when the population is more than 280 million, a loss of two million jobs means a national unemployment rate of 5.6 percent....

FDR scrapped his own balanced budget pledge as soon as he took office in 1932 and opened the spending spigots. By 1936, the deficit had risen to 5.5 percent of national output--even higher than the Bush deficit is expected to be. And while the number of jobs did expand, it was still 3.2 million jobs short of the 1929 high water mark. By 1936, unemployment still stood at 16.9 percent, nearly triple today's national unemployment rate. Even after another four years of New Deal economics, including a hefty tax hike that did little to narrow the deficit, unemployment was still 14.6 percent. But we don't hear Democrats talking about an FDR disaster. [Detroit News]

He revisited NBC to appear yesterday morning to appear on "The Today Show." Went on Disney-ABC's "Good Morning America." Appeared on AOL-Time Warner's CNN for "Inside Politics," hit Microsoft-GE outlet MSNBC for "Hardball," and returned to CNN at day's end for an interview on "Paula Zahn Now" ....

Doesn't Mr. Nader read his own Web site? "The mass media in the United States is extremely concentrated, and the messages that they send are too broadly uniform. Six global corporations control more than half of all mass media in our country: newspapers, magazines, books, radio and television.Our democracy is being swamped by the confluence of money, politics and concentrated media."

But the uniform concentration of "mass media" doesn't seem to have prevented Mr. Nader from getting a platform to get his message out. Indeed, anyone with a television at the end of the day yesterday would have to wonder what Mr. Nader could possibly be complaining about.

One of many reasons Mr. Nader's message will never resonate with more than a tiny sliver of the American population is that ordinary people understand that corporations create jobs, wealth, and innovation.... And Mr. Nader surely has enough experience with the press to understand--even if he won't acknowledge it publicly--that despite the specter of mindless minions marching in lockstep to the orders of the almighty dollar, stations and newspapers and Web sites are run by individuals--by journalists, editors, and producers with their own brains, ambitions, standards, strengths, and weaknesses.

Ralph Nader: Public Shakedown Artist
Yes, the same man who rails against corporate welfare - because it coercively takes money from taxpayers and funnels it to corporations - has set up a rather ingenious, if underhanded and manipulative, way of coercively taking money from college kids - and funneling it to Ralph Nader.
 
 A Green Dictatorship: Ralph Nader's Vision for America
 Green Party presidential candidate and "consumer advocate" Ralph Nader wants to "reform" America -- whether you like it or not.
 
 Ralph Nader's Glittering Record
 Nader does indeed have a glittering record. But all that glitters is not gold.
 
 Unlike Gore, Ralph Nader is the Real Thing
 Nader is as wrong as can be, ideologically. But in terms of political consistency, he's right on the money.
 
 What To Do with Ralph Nader?
 In April of 1999, Nader wrote an article titled, "What to do with Microsoft?" The thought that Microsoft's owners should be able to decide what to do with their own property did not seem to have occurred to Nader.