S.T. Karnick

This 106th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan provides an apt occasion to reflect on what was surely a keystone of the 40th president’s thoughts on government: the idea of American Exceptionalism.

It would be a miracle if people were not arguing intently over this election, because the nation’s government has grown so big that there is more at stake than ever before.

Although the mainstream media relentlessly mock the Tea Party movement, Sons of Liberty suggests an affirmation of the impulse and its validity as a response to the present moment.

In an observation that should surprise no one except a few cave-dwellers, a new study from NATPE/Content First and the Consumer Electronics Association has found that millennials find Netflix subscriptions more valuable than broadcast and cable subscriptions. There are, however, some useful insights to be gleaned if we look a little deeper.

Acting on plans reported here a month ago, entertainment channel HBO has decided to end its thirty-plus-year dependence on cable and satellite distributors, announcing it will offer an online streaming video…

Writing in The Orange County Register, the distinguished urbanologist Joel Kotkin notes that many conservatives are now “waging a war on middle-class America” through their support for trendy progressive “smart growth” policies. Such policies are the stock in trade of an urban planning movement that has been in power for about a quarter-century now, promoted by certain business interests (aka rent-seekers) in a coalition with elitist progressive politicians and upper-class and aspiring-upper-class cultural snobs.

Writing in Canon and Culture, Prof. Colin Garbarino of Houston Baptist University poses an interesting and accurate critique of the common notion that the nation’s colleges and universities indoctrinate a generally conservative or at least politically and culturally neutral incoming student population into advanced progressive leftism and political correctness. They do impose such an agenda, he notes, but the overwhelming majority of students they are indoctrinating have already heard and adopted its fundamental premises upon arrival.

Two articles today show how the Internet economy tends to be like the overall economy but much, much faster. Innovation is faster, the rise of new companies is faster, and maturing and death of those firms is likewise faster than in the industrial and service sectors that preceded it and remain in place beside it.

Retail stores are opening even earlier than usual for their annual Black Friday sales this year, in an intensifying competition for scarce consumer dollars. Big retailers such as Target, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Best Buy, Sears, and Toys R Us will open Thursday night and feature “doorbuster” bargains to lure tryptophan-laden customers into their emporia (if they can fit through the doors).

Competition between geographic areas continually undermines the viability of corrupt, monopolistic jurisdictions.

Sen. John McCain wants to “let” cable and satellite TV customers buy their pay channels on an a la carte basis. That is certainly an option many customers would like to have, but McCain’s bad idea is to use the heavy hand of government to make it happen.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died today at the age of 87, and we here in the United States should take good note of her accomplishments. Thatcher’s life’s work…

Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance in the UK has produced an excellent essay dismantling the British government’s announced plans to cap the interest rates on personal loans. “Loan sharking” strikes…