In the comments to my previous post on California Gov. Jerry Brown’s veto message, I said: I cannot subscribe to a theory of government in which all our choices are reduced to a crib sheet and then regulated, penalized, mandated,… Continue Reading
I devoured Mark Steyn’s After America: Get Ready for Armageddon within a few days of its release. If you couldn’t tell, I’m a bit of a declinist, so I tend to nod right along with Steyn’s narrative. An impressive autodidact… Continue Reading
Democracy in America shares this story about Norway’s “plush and unusual punishment” of its most violent criminals—including flat screens, private restrooms, and a recording studio. However, the author chokes back what he suggests is an irrational sense of moral offense… Continue Reading
I am grateful for the incentive Jason’s rebuttal provides to study conservative thinker Michael Oakeshott. However, I respectfully disagree with Jason’s conclusion that “esteem[ of] the present … on account of its familiarity” suffices to establish conservatism. Thus, I stand… Continue Reading
The LA region is preparing for the weekend closure of the 405 freeway, one of the area’s main thoroughfares, for the planned demolition of the Mulholland Bridge to add carpool lanes to a 10-mile stretch connecting the west side to… Continue Reading
Tim Sandefur writes: The pro-slavery argument was very much what we would today call “communitarianism”—the argument was that the society of status was more human and spiritually rewarding than the allegedly cold, commodified, alienating society of industrial capitalism. . .… Continue Reading
Despite modern liberalism’s sweeping scope, no one seems to know quite what it is. Liberalism appeared somewhere in the sixteenth century—“St. George, in the guise of Rationality,” as Kenneth Minogue puts it—to slay the dragons of despotic kingship and religious… Continue Reading
Andrew Sullivan’s recent apologia—or, perhaps, obituary—of conservatism makes at least one very good point: Modern conservatism has painted itself into a corner. Concerning the poor and uninsured, for example, Mr. Sullivan rightly observes that “in a society that won’t let… Continue Reading
Kevin Drum wonders: to the extent that you really do believe that cognitive abilities are (a) important, and (b) strongly biologically determined, shouldn’t you also believe that the poor are more unlucky than anything else, and haven’t done anything to… Continue Reading
Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom responds to the old argument, recently repeated by Ezra Klein and Paul Sterne, that the Senate is undemocratic because it gives residents of less populous states greater relative voting power than residents of more populous… Continue Reading