Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower, is either a hero or a traitor. We’ve heard him described both ways in no uncertain terms. So which is it? I’ve been withholding judgment, I thought, based on needing more facts. Yet no matter how many facts come out about the case, I remain ambivalent. In the Snowden situation, I believe we have encountered a paradox.
Many libertarians, outraged by how our government spies on us, call me a "traitor" because I'm not very angry. I understand that the National Security Administration tracking patterns in our emails and phone calls could put us on a terrible, privacy-crushing slippery slope.
Among the many reasons that Americans hold the House of Representatives in low repute -- at historically abysmal levels, in fact -- is the blatantly partisan and ideological misconduct of so many committee chairs. Without any evident embarrassment these mighty politicians deny science, defy mathematics and dismiss every fact that contradicts their prejudices. But bad as these chairs tend to be, none is quite as flamboyantly awful as Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the Government Oversight Committee, a special investigative panel whose latest effort to conjure scandal from nothingness at the Internal Revenue Service would provoke his removal by a responsible leadership.
A trip to London provides an occasion to compare and contrast British politics and attitudes with those in America.
This has been a big week for the Supreme Court. In four separate cases, it applied stricter scrutiny to racial quotas and preferences in higher education, overturned part of the Voting Rights Act, ruled unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act and dismissed an appeal of a case overturning California voters' ban on same-sex marriage.
In addition to being a fine actor, James Gandolfini was smart and rich. He could afford the best medical care the West has to offer and understand the stakes of being so overweight and stressed. Yet he let his weight balloon in an orgy of careless eating and drinking. Did he think himself invincible or assume that he had time to deal with health issues later, his age being only 51? Surely a doctor somewhere read him the riot act, so why didn't he make health a priority?
On Dec. 1, 1955, a churchgoing woman of character refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala. Many credit Rosa Parks' courageous action that day with launching the civil rights movement. While I have great respect for what Ms. Parks did that day, however, she did not start the civil rights movement. The movement began long before, and public opinion led the way.
The two political parties are in disarray. The Democrats are disheartened. The Republicans are disunited.
The instinct for survival is coded into the DNA of every living creature, and the Internal Revenue Service is made up of thousands of human beings with that instinct. As a single department of the government leviathan, the IRS is a good example, too, of the collective survival instinct of the federal government.
People say America is a free country. But what if you want to drink, have a cigarette or make a bet? Government often says "no" to protect us from ourselves.
Something's gotten into Brazilians that hasn't caught on here, but should. They're out on the streets protesting their government's plan to sink billions into monuments to sport.
Immigration reform now seems certain to pass the Senate within days, in an amended bill that could win as many as 70 votes from both parties. The results will improve life for millions of undocumented workers and their families -- but the costs will not be negligible, including a "surge" that will rapidly double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol to 40,00 agents, along with much more fencing and surveillance technology.
Where did the panic over mad cow disease go? Off the front pages, for sure. A few years ago, respected journalists warned of a looming public health disaster as Americans consumed deadly hamburgers. They accused the beef industry and government regulators of colluding to hide the problem of mad cow disease.
Does having health insurance make people healthier? It's widely assumed that it does.
Obamacare advocates repeatedly said that its expansion of Medicaid would save thousands of lives a year. Obamacare critics seldom challenged the idea that increased insurance coverage would improve at least some people's health.
While recognizing that it's important to fight terrorism with all of the tools at our disposal, the American people are having a hard time finding good guys in the story about the National Security Agency's surveillance program.
Government officials from the president on down have defended the program and claim it has prevented several terrorist attacks. However, questions have been raised about some of those claims, and just 35 percent of Americans believe the officials are telling the truth. A larger number (45 percent) believe they are just trying to justify the surveillance program now that it's been made public.
As Americans obsess over NSA spying, abuse by the IRS and other assaults on our freedom, I can't get my mind off the thousand other ways politicians abuse us.
The battle has been joined, and the citizens of the great American Republic are streaming to the fight against the immense and powerful dragon beast, “Big Government.” How the story will end, no one knows but God Himself, but today the battle rages openly for the soul of the nation with liberty itself at stake.
Little victories in curbing health care costs can add up. In truth, they seem little only next to the titanic $2.6 trillion Americans spend a year on health care. So let us salute them.
Are Americans becoming more libertarian on cultural issues? I see evidence that they are, in poll findings and election results on three unrelated issues -- marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage and gun rights.
Start with pot. Last November voters in the states of Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana, by a 55 to 45 percent margin in Colorado (more than Barack Obama's margin in the state) and by 56 to 44 percent in Washington.
Nearly a dozen years after the passage of the Patriot Act, rushed through Congress in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, informed debate over the balance between liberty and security is long overdue. That includes a public examination of how widely and deeply the National Security Agency (and other elements of the "intelligence community") may monitor Americans' telecommunications without violating the Bill of Rights.
