Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
Many Republican congressmen and senators will want to, or feel pressure to, object to the Joe Biden votes cast by electors from Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, or Arizona. That’s not because the results in those states are seriously in doubt or because there’s real reason to suspect the election was stolen. Donald Trump hasn’t … Read more
[P]rograms offering educational doctorates don’t exist to shape scholars who will contribute to knowledge. They exist because they are cash cows for universities, selling easy degrees to people who want to have that “doctor” appellation, but even more because such “advanced” degrees usually mean automatic pay increases. Supposedly, institutional status is raised by having another … Read more
One of the key insights of conservatism is that habit matters. Call it culture or tradition, or call it manners as National Review does, the corpus of informal rules, norms, and expectations that quietly governs 90 percent of life in a free society is, in most situations and conditions, much more extensive in its influence … Read more
For my sins, I guess, I watched all six hours of the Jericho March proceedings from Washington today, on the march webcast. I say for my sins, but in truth, I decided to watch it because I am interested in what the activist Christian Right is saying, and how they are thinking, in the wake … Read more
Today, capitalism seems unattractive to the young because it is stacked against them. America’s current outsiders will have far better lives in a free system, however, than in any new socialism, which would invariably privilege connected apparatchiks (among the other failings it would bring). The cause of freedom will need to present itself as a … Read more
In his 2013 book, What to Expect When No One’s Expecting, Jonathan V. Last described “car seat economics” – the expense and burden of car seats for ever-older kids, the penalties imposed on parents who flout the requirements – as an example of the countless “tiny evolutions” that make large families rarer. Obviously car seats … Read more
In October 2018, rebutting the specious argument that abortion can be justified as a so-called “solution” to the problem of a crisis pregnancy, Pope Francis famously stated, “Is it right to take a human life to solve a problem? It’s like hiring a hitman.” By that same standard of comparison, it’s fair to assert that … Read more
The time has come for religious parents to take their children back from the state. . . . It turns out that religiosity is usually determined very early in life. All the data suggest that, by and large, kids brought up in religious households stay religious and kids who aren’t, don’t. Consequently, childhood religiosity has … Read more
“A major fight over the next 4 years will be over who is and is not allowed to be heard on the internet, and who wields the power to police discourse” Throughout the Obama-Biden reign and especially as it came to a close, Obama administration officials flooded into Silicon Valley, taking top jobs at Google, … Read more
Progressives are all too happy for Americans of more modest means to subsidize relatively high-income Democratic households. One of Joe Biden’s first tests in office will be the urgent question of giving a big pile of money to rich people. Biden wants a little welfare for the affluent in the form of a $10,000 college-loan … Read more
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in prepared remarks Thursday: “We need to think about what is truly the most important thing. Is it the worship or the building? For me, God is wherever you are. You don’t have to sit in the church pew for God to hear your prayers.” On one level, Northam is … Read more
What if the perennial assumption that “Wall Street” is of the Right was always wrong? “A funny thing has happened within the world of Big Money,” writes Alex Yablon at Business Insider: “A small but growing number of finance professionals have begun talking like leftists.” “Weird Left Finance Twitter” is the focus of this piece, … Read more
For the United States in the 21st century, folly has taken two forms. First, it manifests in the Trojan horse of decades-long economic capitulation and submission to the Chinese Communist Party’s geo-economic agenda. This is finally changing, but only after the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in intellectual property through technology transfer and … Read more
Suppose an anthropologist were asked, apart from the sound and fury of current politics, what were the signs of a dying culture, or a culture committing suicide? What might he respond, as following from human nature and from the terms of the question itself? What might he notice in our own? Such a culture would … Read more
3 Reasons Trump is Wrong to Oppose Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Since I’m an economist specializing in public finance, I get very upset about punitive tax policy and wasteful government spending. But what really gets my blood boiling is reading about the horrific policy of civil asset forfeiture, which literally allows government to … Read more
The fate of Betsy Fresse, an evangelical Christian who refused to don a gay pride shirt in accordance with instructions from her manager in a Starbucks store in New Jersey is explained with remarkable concision in a recent Reuters article: A former Starbucks Corp barista in New Jersey sued the coffee chain on Thursday, claiming … Read more
Just in time for the holidays, one lawmaker wants to tax New York City residents $3 for every package they order online, excluding food and medicine. The legislature wouldn’t be able to take up the idea in time to turn it into a Scrooge Tax on gifts mailed to friends and family this holiday season, … Read more
A Dec. 5 incident in Michigan shows again that it is past time for a simple rule to apply to protesters of any kind: Stay away from private houses. Period. If this rule is broken, police should strictly enforce any and all relevant laws against harassment, incitement, trespassing, and disturbing the peace. More importantly, even … Read more
A new survey conducted by The Chronicle [of Higher Education] and two other organizations sheds some light on the financial challenges that colleges face as they approach a spring semester that might be even tougher to pull off than the fall. Many of the surveyed institutions — particularly small private colleges — offered high discount … Read more
The loss of economic and social opportunities does not translate into the loss of one’s fundamental obligation to love. . . . A politician charms his voters by promising them better opportunities for success. Christ, on the other hand, is not at all concerned about success. He demands that all people love each other. Love … Read more
Washington Metro says it will have to end weekend train service, close 19 rail stations, and reduce bus service by 45 percent if Congress doesn’t give the transit industry $32 billion (on top of normal federal funding of $13 billion) in 2021. In order to keep from making similar cuts, San Jose’s Valley Transportation Authority … Read more
The pandemic exposes the error of equating ‘merit’ with cognitive ability. In a new book, David Goodhart advocates a rebalancing of dignity and status. . . . The over-rewarding of cognitive merit at the expense of the wider spectrum of human ability is, in a way, one cause of our populist moment. But in another … Read more
The Ohio state house has passed a piece of legislation that would require abortion providers in the state either to cremate or bury the remains of aborted babies. In a 60-35 vote yesterday, the state house approved a bill that had already passed the state senate earlier this year. The state senate is expected to … Read more
Because it tends to exaggerate our already excessive national sentimentality, the Christmas season is a time of sloppy thinking about several separate kinds of endeavor that are all lumped into the category of “generosity.” This year, the usual charitable impulses of the season inevitably will tend to bleed into two adjacent concerns: the necessity and … Read more
The 74 million men and women who voted for Donald Trump had thousands of different reasons for their votes and fit a million different demographic profiles. But the most important voter to Trump was the one who had no interest in politics before 2015 and would not have otherwise gone to the polls. This was … Read more