Today marks the tenth anniversary of the attack on the United States known as 9/11. A decade later, America is not at war with an external enemy as much as it is with itself.

We live in a mixed economy, or a mixed social system. This means we are neither a free country, nor an enslaved one. We're what most people claim to want: Somewhere in the middle. If the middle between two principled extremes is always the right way, then the United States of 2011 is perfect. So how come we aren't?

“Oil prices are rising. Health care is too expensive. It’s so unfair! I’m so angry! Obama had better do something about this—and now!”

First of all, we have to get straight what a “price” actually is. There is no such thing as a “fair” price. A price is something that happens primarily as a result of the relationship between supply and demand. In other words, the more demand goes up for something while the supply of the product/service stays the same, the higher the cost will be.

What drives a person to be a Big Government statist?

Many motives are possible. One of them is to quiet their internal noise.

Q: Dr. Hurd, in a prior column, you wrote the following: “People are the authors of their own destiny, for better or worse. Let’s be honest. Wasn’t it this idea that religion was designed to extinguish?” Could you elaborate?