José Azel 182 posts 0 comments

Two million people holding hands and singing patriotic songs across three countries. This was the Baltic Way- the Singing Revolution of the Baltic States. For four years, between 1987 and 1991, the peoples of Estonia, Latvia, and…
Read More...

In the Americas, we take birthright citizenship for granted. But in fact, the right to citizenship of anyone born in the territory of a state is rare. Currently, only some thirty countries in the world offer jus soli (right of the soil)…
Read More...

The United States was founded on the premise that freedom is a universal value. Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, was unequivocal: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they…
Read More...

In his book “Democracy and Political Ignorance,” law Professor Ilya Somin develops the thesis that political ignorance is a serious problem for democracy. Born in the USSR, Professor Somin has a keen appreciation for the merits of…
Read More...

The Anna Karenina principle derives from the opening line of Leo Tolstoy’s book Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” In essence, there are more ways for a family to be unhappy…
Read More...

As a classical liberal, or libertarian in the American political lexicon, I am often frustrated with political labels that do not capture my belief in the supremacy of our natural rights, or my understanding of liberty mostly as freedom…
Read More...

Democracy and free markets form the sociopolitical environment that allows us to transform our aspirations into achievements. And, for most people, the United States is the place that epitomizes both democracy and free…
Read More...

The yearly flooding of the Nile, the result of enormous precipitation on the Ethiopian Highlands, has been a critical natural cycle in Egypt since ancient times. The floods were then seen as the annual coming of the gods and…
Read More...

The United States is a republic, not a democracy. We owe this distinction to the ageless wisdom of the Founding Fathers. Think about it this way; suppose you live in a condominium building of ten apartment units. Nine of the units…
Read More...

Before a dear reader jumps the gun with a punishing email, let me make clear that,this is not an anti-immigration column. I have published, in these pages, several defenses of immigration; see for instance, “Migration as an Individual…
Read More...