Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
I have for years argued that most people would be reflexive free-market capitalists if not for their experiences with a handful of businesses: airlines, banks, cable and Internet providers, etc. At the very top of this list is insurance companies. “The trouble with socialism is socialism,” as Willi Schlamm famously put it. “The trouble with … Read more
I never quite know who is most stuck in the past: The liberals who insist that conservatives and Republicans are all shills for rich folks and corporations, or the conservatives and Republicans who insist liberals and Democrats are all Marxist redistributionists. It should be obvious to everyone with eyes that today’s Democratic Party is the … Read more
Rahav Gabay and others write, The present research investigates this Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV), which we define as an ongoing feeling that the self is a victim, which is generalized across many kinds of relationships. People who have a higher tendency for interpersonal victimhood feel victimized more often, more intensely, and for longer durations … Read more
Generations of presidents have cited “the will of the people” to legitimize power grabs. The Founding Fathers wouldn’t approve. . . . Americans are encouraged to believe that their vote on Election Day somehow guarantees that the subsequent ten thousand actions by the president, Congress, and federal agencies will embody their wishes, spoken or otherwise, … Read more
It probably goes without saying at this point that Democrat governors have overreached in their response to the Wuhan coronavirus. Democrat leaders’ draconian, illogical, unsupportable, contradictory, and just plain stupid lockdown decisions are coming home to roost. Not only is California governor Gavin “Rules for thee, but not for me” Newsom facing an increasingly viable … Read more
The investigation of Hunter Biden is not simply about political hay-making, though hay will be made; it is not simply being used as a cudgel against Joe Biden; and — most important — it is not about “family.” How much and exactly what kind of a weasel Hunter Biden is constitutes the minor question, but … Read more
On the first day of Hanukah, December 11, 2020, groups of Jews in a number of countries in a gesture of solidarity celebrated the festival with Uighur Muslims. Prominent Jews had already expressed concern about China’s treatment of these Muslims. Former British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs on July 22, 2020 called the treatment a moral … Read more
One of the many manifestations of the media’s bias is its tendentious treatment of the Catholic Church. Seeing the Church as a historic impediment to the advance of liberalism, the media tends to favor whatever weakens her. Hence, liberal revolutionaries within the Church, who seek to throw her teachings into disarray, can always count on … Read more
Human rights groups say that the International Olympic Committee is ignoring their concerns over China’s treatment of the Uighur ethnic minority group and Beijing’s repressive policy in Hong Kong. As first reported by the Associated Press, the activists allege that the committee has “turned a blind eye to the widespread and systematic human rights violations … Read more
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
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
“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
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
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
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
Circumstances change and the world may grow more complicated, but authoritarians never vary from their demand for more power over our lives. Fans of a large and intrusive state are fond of arguing that leaving people alone is fine for simple, primitive societies, but that the growing complexity of the modern world requires a strong … Read more
The Institute for Justice wants the Supreme Court to rule that the Fifth Amendment requires a prompt post-seizure hearing. Civil asset forfeiture laws, which allow the government to seize property allegedly tainted by crime without ever charging the owner, are fundamentally rigged in favor of the law enforcement agencies that get a cut of the … Read more