When you hear the word selfishness what comes to mind? Typically, selfishness is associated with amoral, predatory behavior. It’s a word used to describe people like Bernard Madoff or Attila the Hun. On the other hand, selflessness is generally celebrated and aligned with friendship and love. In this talk, Peter Schwartz challenges these misconceptions.
Every year, The Leadership Program of the Rockies (LPR) in Denver, CO, organizes several full-day sessions intended to equip up-and-coming leaders in law, business, academia, policy and politics with the intellectual ammunition they need to become principled advocates of free markets and limited government.
Don’t forget to tune in this Monday, May 25, to an all new episode of The Yaron Brook Show. We often think of the men and women in the military as sacrificing for the rest of us. Are we right to do so? Or can serving in the military properly be self-interested? Yaron takes up this issue and others.
Don’t miss an all new episode of The Yaron Brook Show this Monday, May 11, in which Yaron will discuss Israel’s fight to defend itself from its aggressors.
Peter Bergen argues in a piece for CNN, that it was inevitable that one day actual violence over speech that Muslims find offensive would reach our shores. Now it’s happened. On Sunday, two gunmen opened fire at the “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest” in Garland, Texas. Police shot and killed the two gunmen. One security guard was injured, but it appears the injuries were not serious. We can be thankful for that. Must Americans now become accustomed to this sort of violence?
Don’t miss an all new episode of The Yaron Brook Show this Monday, May 4, in which ARI’s Onkar Ghate will guest host. Onkar will discuss America’s current immigration policies and analyze what is proper in a free society. He’ll also talk about the comments made by Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau on free speech and radical Islam.
Each year, high school debaters go head-to-head to qualify for a chance to compete in the National Speech & Debate Tournament. This year, debaters qualified by making persuasive arguments on topics ranging from whether employers should be required to provide employees with “living wages” to whether or not the United States should commit ground troops to combatting ISIL. In June, top competitors from 110 districts across the country will gather in Dallas, Texas to showcase their skills for the chance to win college scholarships.
Imagine you’re a foreign journalist in Israel, and one day, visiting Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem, you observe this scene: men clad all in black stand in military formation, lifting their right arms in a Nazi-style salute. They stand with their boots on Israeli flags, draped on the ground. Nearby, actors play dead Israeli soldiers. Behind the first formation, another row of men carry banners of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The rally, in support of that jihadist group, draws hundreds of university students. Some of them return the Nazi-style salute. Al-Quds University, a mainstream institution, has had partnerships with Brandeis and Bard Universities.
I’ve recently given a couple talks called “Free Speech Under Siege” in which I argue that the primary threat to free speech today comes not from terrorist attacks, such as those in Paris in January, but from an unwillingness to defend free speech as a right. That’s not to say terrorist attacks aren’t significant — ask Flemming Rose or cartoonist Molly Norris how free they feel to speak after being threatened with death for daring to publish drawings of Muhammad. My point is that the threats and killings can only succeed in chilling our speech if we let them. One way we do that is by appeasing those who resort to threats and violence.
