Tiger Woods is taking heat from the media for just wanting to play golf and not taking their bait.

USA Today columnist Christine Brennan was highly critical of Tiger Woods earlier this week for his refusal to weigh in on the politics of the day.

Brennan, along with several reporters at Tiger’s press conference following a recent tournament, seemed upset because he would not opine on the subject of Donald Trump and race relations, particularly “as a man of color.”

It’s as if every athlete now has an obligation to share personal views on every subject.

The constitutional right to free speech gives Tiger the right to say nothing at all. Perhaps he has a different view or a less popular one. Perhaps he voted for Trump. Maybe he didn’t vote at all. Regardless, he is not required to provide his views on politics or society.

Woods has said that to expect him to have a say on everything having to do with blackness in America because his father was black is disrespectful to his Asian mother. Because his mother is Asian, is Tiger compelled to weigh in on trade relations and Harvard’s admission policies?

Maybe Tiger just wants to talk about golf. Maybe golf fans just want hear him discuss golf. Rather than criticize Tiger for refusing to weigh in on political matters, he should be thanked for having the discipline and the good sense to let everyone enjoy the sports they like.

The USGA, PGA, LPGA, and their fans appear to understand golf is a sport, not a political weapon. Why doesn’t the rest of the sports world?If we are in the mood for political commentary, we can switch the channel to any number of networks that dedicate 24 hours every day to the subject.

It seems the governing bodies of golf understand something fundamental: The sports industry relies on fans, spectators, viewers, and players. Without attendees and viewers, the business models fall apart. Like any healthy business, the customer is at the center.

The NBA and NCAA’s boycott of North Carolina over the transgender bathroom bill and the NFL’s handling of the national anthem issue are recent examples of leagues alienating fans by involving themselves in politics.

With this is mind, why would a sports league attempt to use its sport as a weapon for politics? Sports fans come from all political persuasions. Why jeopardize your relationship with the customer over political issues?

We’ve been asking that question of ESPN, NBA, NFL, NCAA, and other sports organizations of late. Using the resources of a sports organization or the resources of a media company to advance an agenda seems a flawed strategy, and there is data emerging to support this.

In nearly every measured television market, center right-viewers are leaving ESPN. Deep Root, a TV data service, analyzed 43 markets across the US and compared 2015 audiences with 2016 audiences. In 36 of the 43 markets, ESPN viewership had become more liberal—between 5 percent and 27 percent more liberalin 2016 than in 2015.

In other words, center-right viewers left the network.

Those of us who want our sports delivered free of political commentary salute Tiger Woods and the sport of golf. Now please have a talk with your organizational cohorts at the NFL, NBA, and NCAA. We sports consumers/fans would like to have our sports back.

Sports have always been a common denominator in our culture. Regardless of race, age, sex, education, or political affiliation, sport is a unifier. That needs to be respected.

With all of the balkanization that exists in the other parts of our lives, let’s leave sports alone. We’ve already surrendered higher education, arts, music, media, and filmmaking to progressives. They can’t have sports, too.

Several states have unfunded liabilities that can only be fixed with major reforms. Unfortunately, politicians find it easier to ignore the problem.

Unfunded public-pension liabilities are not a fun subject, and most politicians do all they can to avoid it. Nobody wants to be the sober one in a room full of drunks — but the party can’t go on forever, and eventually someone will have to clean up the mess.

According to a comprehensive survey by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) of 280 state-administered public-pension plans, the unfunded liabilities of state-administered pensions now exceed $6 trillion. The number increased by $433 billion in the last twelve months. An April report from Pew Charitable Trusts shows that state-pension debt has increased for 15 consecutive years. While this growing gap is a major concern for current public-sector employees and retirees, it should also worry the rest of us.

As the costs of providing current pension benefits begin to weigh on city and state budgets, other public services are getting crowded out. This is putting pressure on many pension-plan managers to seek greater returns by buying riskier assets. Decades of underfunding adds to the pressure, as governments scramble to meet unrealistic return targets and pay out promised benefits at a level the private sector moved away from decades ago. This all points to the growing possibility that many states will need to raise taxes to keep the party going. But without major pension reform, we may soon see the day when taxpayers in fiscally responsible states are asked to bail out those states that just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stop partying.

A few examples of what some of the party favors look like will help explain why the clean-up phase will be so infuriating. The retired head of the Oregon Health & Science University takes home a pension of $76,111 — each month! Fifty-eight percent of police and firefighters in Scranton, Pa., are on disability pensions; the average retirement age of a Scranton police officer is just under 45 years old. In Nevada, the average full-career state worker will receive more than $1.3 million in lifetime pension benefits. In five states (California, West Virginia, Oregon, Texas, and New Mexico), a retiree can receive an annual pension income that exceeds his last yearly salary.

In Mississippi, the unfunded pension picture is not a pretty one. We have total unfunded liabilities of over $80 billion. On a per capita basis, that means each Mississippian is responsible for roughly $27,000 of the debt. We only have 24 percent of these promises currently funded. But this issue affects states of all sizes and politics, and from all regions.

The states with the largest per capita debt are somewhat surprising: Alaska, Connecticut, Ohio, Illinois, and New Mexico. So are the states with the smallest per capita share of debt: Tennessee, Indiana, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.

However, perhaps the most important measure for a state’s pension health is its funding ratio. This is the percentage of the total pension obligations that is currently funded. The states that are the least funded to meet obligations include Connecticut (20 percent), Kentucky (21 percent), Illinois (23 percent), Mississippi (24 percent), and New Jersey (26 percent). In other words, Connecticut has saved $1 for every $5 of known debt obligation it has for current and future state system retirees. The states in the best shape: Wisconsin (62 percent funded), South Dakota (48 percent), New York (46 percent), Tennessee (46 percent), and North Carolina (45 percent).

What do the data tell us? For starters, note the strong correlation between states that have managed their pension programs responsibly and states with pro-growth economic policies that favor free-market solutions over government ones. Note that each of the five states with the highest funding levels are also states that rely less on the government to sustain their economies. In none of these states does government control more than 45 percent of the economy, which puts these states in the top half of that measure.

On the other end of the spectrum, 57 percent of Kentucky’s economy is controlled by government, while the public sector controls 55 percent of Mississippi’s economy. Obviously, states such as New Jersey and Illinois suffer from powerful public-employee unions that resist any attempts to adjust spending, renegotiate bad contracts, or move new employees to 401(k)-type retirement accounts that require self-financing of retirement programs (as with the tens of millions of workers in the private sector). But even in states without public-sector unions, such as Mississippi, lawmakers have been hesitant to make necessary changes.

The party is over. This is an easy math problem that, unlike the financial crisis from ten years ago, everyone can see coming. Let’s turn the lights on in state capitols and city halls everywhere and get the cleanup started.

Much has been written lately about how sports gambling is going to lead to the downfall of man, the decay of society, and the loss of the integrity of sports. As the late Lewis Grizzard would say, “That’s a bunch of hogwash.”

What the Supreme Court did in voting 6-3 to overturn the federal ban on sports gambling was to give back to the states their constitutional powers.

In affirming federalism, they also gave people back their rights to choose how they want to live and whether they want to spend their own after-tax money on a sports bet, a municipal bond, or a ham sandwich. No matter how you personally feel about gambling on sports, it’s a mistake to take away a person’s individual liberty just because some people will be irresponsible.

Now that power to regulate gambling has been returned to all the states, there are more than a few organizations making spurious arguments about the need for all sorts of remedies to potential harms. The sports leagues have started to campaign for a “content fee” from each state. The argument is that their team and league intellectual property will be used by various sports gambling sites, apps, media, and other related entities. Ironically, such increased use of the “content” of the leagues’ and teams’ logos and trademarks is actually going to make the the leagues and teams more valuable, along with the rights to distribute their live programming. The states shouldn’t agree to pay a penny to a sports league.

The other specious claim is that sports gambling will seriously threaten the integrity of the games. You’ll hear this especially from the NFL and the NCAA. But rather than seeing legal sports betting as the enemy of sports competition, we should see it as an ally to protect sports. Using powerful algorithms, sports leagues (the NCAA included) can use sports wagering technology as an “early warning system” to uncover potential signs of corruption. Major data companies, including Google and Microsoft, have been developing technologies to aid in the operation of legal sports betting for years. Thanks to the free market, sophisticated software and innovative competitors will harness technology to improve the integrity of all the games.

The repeal of the federal prohibition on sports wagering is bringing a massive industry out of the shadows and into the sunlight. Despite the ban, which began with the passing Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 1992, annual sports betting activity in the U.S. is estimated to be as high as $400 billion. Since the enactment of PASPA, which was largely driven by the NCAA as a way to prevent gambling on sports, the industry has grown by a factor of 10. Like most federal intrusions into state matters or consumer protection, the results of PAPSA were far different from the original intent.

Most of that betting was happening offshore or through the dark net — without transparency or consumer protection. According to the estimates from the American Gaming Association, 80 percent of the $10 billion bet on the NCAA tournament this past March and April was done illegally, essentially making anyone who participated in the bracket office pool a criminal.

For 26 years, we’ve been living under a dubious set of claims about sports wagering while Nevada and a few other states enjoyed a federal monopoly. In Mississippi, where I now live and work, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is planning to have the first casino in the Magnolia State to offer sports betting. What’s more, they expect to be the first Native American tribe in the U.S. to offer sports wagering. Because the Choctaw tribe is not subject to state regulation, they are free to offer sports betting to customers immediately.

In Mississippi, and in other states in need of new revenue streams, the regulated casinos will not be far behind. That’s because Mississippi lawmakers had the foresight to approve new rules from the state’s Gaming Commission in anticipation of a repeal of PAPSA.

Why should Nevada and a few other states have all the fun (and all the tax revenue) associated with letting people legally pursue their interests and hobbies? The games will be fine, and individuals will have the personal liberty (and responsibility) that comes along with it.

This column appeared in the Washington Examiner on June 22, 2018. 

The sober realization is that socialism is still challenging freedom — even with the irrefutable mountain of evidence of its abject failure and toll on humans everywhere it has been tried. Thanks to John Locke, we have a roadmap for freedom and opportunity that any of us can follow.

Socialism has crippled nations and impoverished their citizens. The evidence is clear.  Yet despite this, lots of people in the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe want more of it. A recent survey of adults from the American Culture and Faith Institute found that four out of every 10 adults in America prefer socialism to capitalism. A 2016 Gallup poll found 35 percent of Americans viewed socialism favorably. Among voters younger than 30, that number was an eye-opening 55 percent. The Democratic Socialists of America, the largest Marxist organization since World War II, has 25,000 members — up from just 8,000 members in 2015, when it endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. The DSA has chapters in 49 states. As free-market capitalists and advocates for liberty, it’s clear we have work to do. 

The Legatum Institute, a London think tank, recently published a research report and poll finding widespread public support in the U.K. for renationalizing railroads, banks, and utilities. In the report, Legatum’s Matthew Elliott wrote this sobering summary: “We find that on almost every issue, the public tends to favor non-free-market ideals rather than those of the free market. Instead of an unregulated economy, the public favors regulation. Instead of companies striving for profit above all else, they want businesses to make less profit and be more socially responsible. The capitalism ‘brand’ is in crisis. It is seen as greedy, selfish, and corrupt.”  

The 35-year-old pro-free-market consensus among the U.K.’s three major political parties appears to have collapsed. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has called repeatedly for higher taxes, more regulation, and re-nationalization of major industry.  

In response to Corbyn, former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair has warned his party against reverting to policies that failed so miserably. Few voters seem to know — or care —about the paralyzing malaise that Margaret Thatcher so completely reversed with her free-market policies in the late 1970s and 1980s. The ideological battle had seemed at an end when Blair rejected Labour’s historical program of socialism in the 1990s.  

But memories are short. In 2017, Blair warned Labour, “I wouldn’t want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it.” Understanding the dangerous and ill-founded allure of socialism, Blair went on to caution, “Anyone who supports Corbyn in their heart needs to have a heart transplant!” Blair’s admonition, coupled with Corbyn’s strong support among young voters, recalled Winston Churchill’s famous quote: “If you are not a liberal at age 20, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative by age 30, you have no head.”  

As the data above indicate, this is not a European phenomenon. Consider the surprising candidacy of Sanders in 2016. A generation ago, it would have been the kiss of death for any American politician — no matter how liberal — to have been called a “socialist.” A liberal like Hubert Humphrey spent a lifetime vehemently denying he was a socialist. Suddenly, an elderly senator from the backwoods of New England mounted a viable national campaign as a self-proclaimed socialist. His support was especially strong among young voters. But there are older citizens and leaders throughout the world who should know better. 

Pope Francis recently joined a chorus of voices hostile to free markets and capitalism. In a speech at the Chartreux Institute, he warned a group of global finance students not to “blindly obey the invisible hand of the market” but rather to become “promoters and defenders of a growth in equality.” How sad and embarrassing that the dominant Western voice of Christianity is blind to the very mechanism that has proved to be the best way to lift humans from poverty and reduce inequality all over the world. 

In his famous treatise, The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith showed us that government doesn’t need to attempt to manufacture a central plan to accomplish the greatest value to all because individuals, who are pursuing personal gain, will accomplish this on their own. In essence, Smith correctly viewed the “invisible hand” (individuals responding to market signals and pursuing mutually beneficial voluntary exchanges) as a powerful mechanism to provide benefits to the whole of society. Today, in our free-market system, the only way a person can create great wealth is to provide valuable products and services for which millions of people are willing to pay voluntarily.  

Thanks to John Locke and his brilliant ideas of a system of private property rights, which were codified in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, Americans have the equal opportunity to pursue their own interests and passions and to enjoy the fruits of such pursuit. This pursuit, rather than being a source of inequality, neglect, and exploitation as people like Corbyn, Pope Francis, and Sanders would have us believe, actually facilitates more common good, moral action, equality, opportunity, and prosperity than any economic or cultural system ever tried in the history of the world.  

A generation ago, Thatcher’s dismissal of socialism was well-known and generally accepted: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”  

The 20th century is littered with the failures of socialism. Millions have been either thrust into poverty or held captive to poverty by socialistic governments. As economist Thomas Sowell wrote, “Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.” China, Russia, Zimbabwe, India, Argentina, etc., have all flirted with socialism with uniformly disastrous results. The latest economic disaster is Venezuela. President Trump’s analysis is right on the mark: “The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.”

But do young people understand what Trump is saying? For those of us old enough to have witnessed the many failures of socialism or to have read about them, the words of Ronald Reagan ring true. “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,” the 40th president said. “We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”

Somehow the next generation has to grasp the wisdom of Churchill’s warning: “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” Hopefully the U.S. — and every other nation — can heed the brilliant teachings of Adam Smith and John Locke and the overwhelming evidence of history without having to experience the painful failures of socialism firsthand.

This column appeared in FEE on January 7, 2018.