In a bold step intended to reduce poverty, the European Union will soon be providing some of the Continent’s poorest citizens with subsidized plane tickets and hotel rooms. The Toronto-based National Post reported on Monday that the European Union has declared traveling for tourism a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayer money for those [...]
Last week was slavery week on the HPRgument (apparently!). We talked about “intern slavery,” twice, and then American slavery. But what about today? Slavery of course is still a very real problem; in absolute terms, by every estimate, there are more slaves today than there ever were in history, and the trade of human lives is more active and more hazardous [...]
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell decided to stir up some controversy when he declared April “Confederate History Month,” reviving a state tradition that his Democratic predecessors had ignored for the past eight years. Generally, I think our society has become too politically correct, and I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with having a Confederate History Month. (Indeed, there’s nothing wrong [...]
Confronting global challenges in a more interconnected world “A wise man’s country is the world,” Aristippus, an ancient Greek philosopher, once said. Many others have since echoed his sentiment that individuals ought to identify with broader humanity rather than with nations. In more recent decades, astronauts have joined this chorus, suggesting that a world without borders is not an aspiration [...]
How the world can end human trafficking Some evils are hard to shake. To the surprise of many, an estimated 27 million people are currently enslaved worldwide. As a result of human trafficking, people across the globe are routinely coerced into exploitive relationships for the monetary benefit of others, often for the purpose of forced labor or prostitution. As professor [...]
Rewriting the history of the Civil War
Barack Obama’s election to the presidency should not come as a shock. His political operation was more disciplined, more organized, and more effective than that of his opponents. The wisdom of his policy objectives compared to those of his rivals can be debated ad nauseam, but, it is not my intention to do so; I will leave all normative judgments [...]
