I was invited to speak on entrepreneurship at San Jose’s Tax Day Tea Party event last week, so I thought I would post my remarks. I took a markedly global perspective that focused on free trade and open immigration. The take away is that economic freedom is the key to growth. Of course, a...
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In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google co-founder Sergey Brin elaborated on what was apparently primarily his decision for Google to withdraw from mainland China. Mr. Brin immigrated with his family to the U.S. at the age of 6: The 36-year-old co-founder said he was moved by growing evidence in China of...
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From the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704509704575018990188917592.html In my Race and Liberty in America: The Essential Reader, there are many entries on immigration that make clear that this nation, particularly business, has benefitted from the low-to-high skilled labor of immigrants. Business knows this essential fact and supported open immigration policies since this nation began industrializing....
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Syndicated columnist and bestselling author Dave Barry’s provides an incisive and hilarious, month-by-month review of the year 2009, “Dave Barry’s year in review: 2009.” As he begins: It was a year of Hope—at first in the sense of “I feel hopeful!” and later in the sense of “I hope this year ends soon!” It...
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After writing Race and Liberty in America: The Essential Reader (2009), I’ve bumped into a few articles that come to the same unorthodox conclusions about individuals I profile in my “race reader.” One such “unorthodox” column appeared in the Wall Street Journal on 25 November 2009. In “Not-So-Silent Cal Wrote with Eloquence,” Ryan Cole...
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Means cracking down on citizens too. Hector Veloz was detained for 13 months, including 5 months after he was determined to be a U.S. citizen but the decision was appealed by the immigration authorities. Some argue that the government is not taking the task of keeping out illegals seriously enough. Because of the nature...
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Those on the left who believe in positive rights but not negative liberties have always confounded me when they claim universalism. Now, I believe in universal human rights, locally (and, ideally, civilly) enforced. But if you believe everyone has a right to health care or education, then your conception of rights is limited to...
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Over at Reason.com, Damon Root has a review of my new book Race and Liberty in America: The Essential Reader (University Press of Kentucky, in association with the Independent Institute). It is available here and here (Amazon is currently discounting). The softcover is priced for classroom adoption and general readership, and as blurb-writer Juan...
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Over at National Review Online, I have a column entitled “The Party of Lincoln, and of Douglass: Rediscovering Frederick Douglass in the Age of Obama.” It begins by explaining the importance — and misunderstood nature — of Douglass’s Fourth of July Oration (1852). Historians treat it as a denunciation of America, pure and simple....
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On the evening of May 25, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Alvaro Vargas Llosa was detained for questioning for almost three hours by Venezuelan authorities following his arrival at the Caracas International Airport. Since the officers in charge of his custody forgot to take away his cell phone, he was able to answer a call...
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