Archive for January, 2006

Posted on January 31, 2006 - by Aaron Ross Powell

How Gay Marriage Is Like Rock And Roll

Civil unions are like the prizes they hand out at the very end of an elementary school contest of skill. All the winners get books, crayons, or other cool trinkets and then the teacher says, “Because all the rest of you did such good jobs, I’ve got packets of Pop Rocks for everyone.” […]

Posted on January 6, 2006 - by Aaron Ross Powell

Not Since Jim Crow: The Racism of Affirmative Action

With Executive Order 11246, President Lyndon Johnson established affirmative action by mandating that federal contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” That was 1965. Over the next forty years, civil rights organizations and […]

Posted on January 6, 2006 - by Aaron Ross Powell

Abandoning Superstition: Why I Don’t Believe In God

If you take a look at the history of ideas from the Enlightenment onward, an unmistakable trend is the steady abandonment of superstition. Weather patterns aren’t caused by raucous spirits. Diseases aren’t the work of angry spouses and their witch doctor friends. We break it to children in sympathetic voices that Santa […]

Posted on January 5, 2006 - by Aaron Ross Powell

How The Minimum Wage Hurts The Poor

I can’t remember the last time I heard someone other than an economist speak sensibly about the minimum wage. Here is the ultimate “You can all have everything you want without any consequences” political promise. You’re poor? Well, us powerful guys and gals in Congress are going to snap our fingers and give you all […]