Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
I have a running theory that government officials, and the policies they support, are often disconnected from reality. Politicians on both sides of the aisle tend to do what they always do, no matter the current state of the world. They use the same policy tools, whether appropriate or not. They use every opportunity and … Read more
The world is determined to look away from a horrific campaign of killings being perpetrated in Africa under the name of Islam Michael Nnadi was the kind of Nigerian whose face projected a nearly supernatural joy. His pronounced features made him look both older and younger than his 18 years. His skin was dark, aglow … Read more
Back in 2017, I compared the welfare state vision of “positive rights” with the classical liberal vision of “negative rights.” To elaborate, here’s a video from Learn Liberty that compares these visions. Libertarianism, Explained: Positive Rights vs. Negative Rights For what it’s worth, I don’t like the terms “positive rights” and “negative rights” … Read more
A lot of self-described communists and socialists are motivated by enthusiasm for communists’ and socialists’ stated goals like equality, plenty, and dignity. They ask us to imagine a brotherhood of man in which everyone has abundant food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, and other opportunities for flourishing. To oppose communism and socialism is not to … Read more
Amtrak ridership is down by 87 percent, so Amtrak needs a $2.9 billion rescue from Congress, the company’s executive vice president, Stephen Gardner, told a congressional subcommittee yesterday. Transit ridership is down 70 to 90 percent, added American Public Transportation Association president Paul Skoutelas, so the transit industry wants a $32 billion bailout from Congress. … Read more
What kind of cultist do you have to be to break down crying, saying that a radio host and Donald Trump are your only hope? A grown man did that. How is this guy any different from those fragile, shrieky leftists who go to pieces when someone violates their Safe Space? It’s pathetic. By the … Read more
Donald Trump has always been a conspiracy kook — vaccines, 9/11, Obama’s birth certificate, etc. — and he came into the presidency retailing a conspiracy theory: Let’s not forget that he also claimed that the 2016 election was illegitimate, that he’d actually won the popular vote but that electoral fraud had made it appear otherwise. … Read more
Calls are mounting among Democrats and progressives for a prospective Biden administration to make “canceling” student debt a top priority. The loudest demands have come from progressive legislators such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ilhan Omar. Meanwhile, prominent senators such as Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer are imploring Biden to “cancel” $50,000 in student … Read more
If we regard the lead-up to the election as a Bachelor’s degree in Trump-hatred, can the post-election activity be thought of as grad school? From “Voting Trump Out is Not Enough,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (New Yorker): Like tens of millions of Americans, I voted to end the miserable reign of Donald J. Trump, but we … Read more
On October 17th, the New York Times published an op-ed celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Million Man March that neglected to mention the anti-Semitic history of its organizer, Louis Farrakhan. In response, former Times editorial board member Bari Weiss tweeted that the institution had adopted “a worldview in which Jew hate does not count.” … Read more
Joe Biden’s campaign to con Catholics, often with the help of their own bishops, paid off. He appears to have scooped up at least half of Catholic voters. In the crucial Rust Belt states, he fared far better with them than Hillary Clinton did. “It turns out that while Trump stays on par (or better) … Read more
Voters will soon learn that the costs imposed by minimum wage hikes do not go away just because they are invisible. . . . Portland House of Pizza has been around for 30 years. Restaurant manager Craig Allare hopes it will be around another 30 years. But now he’s left trying to figure out how … Read more
San Francisco’s hotels and motels are slowly emptying of the homeless people that the city placed there during the Covid-19 pandemic. The city simply can’t afford the $260 per night, per person, price tag of housing approximately 2,000 people—just a portion of the estimated 8,000 people who live on the street. Where will they go? … Read more
In June, amid ongoing unrest following George Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis, members of the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America took to the streets to pressure Gotham officials to slash the New York Police Department budget. Protesters rallied at the homes of several powerful council members, banging on doors … Read more
The over-politicization of society erodes our trust in institutions and impoverishes many parts of our lives . . . America is rapidly becoming a low-trust society, with profoundly disturbing implications. Successful non-collectivist societies are predicated on a high level of trust, both among citizens and in public and private institutions. Low-trust societies have higher levels … Read more
What will Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s legacy — and that of the other political coronavirus lockdown artists — look like? Like this. The end of great independent restaurants and bars that you love, places that give Chicago its character, replaced by the hegemony of crappy corporate food. Consider the future: A Chili’s on one corner, with … Read more
It is no secret that the student debt burden in America, now estimated at a cumulative $1.64 trillion, is one of the greatest scandals of a scandal-debauched age. According to Forbes, it is now the second-highest consumer debt category, higher than both credit card and auto loan debt, and behind only mortgage debt. It represents … Read more
Earlier this month, I reviewed some evidence and analysis about the corruption in Washington. Today, let’s look at some tangible examples of how the political elite routinely exploit their positions to enrich themselves by pillaging taxpayers. We could start with the obvious example of Hunter Biden, but he’s just the tip of the iceberg. I … Read more
With November 2020 looming, Americans look forward to the end of a seemingly permanent election campaign and perhaps some reduction in the raging fever of national tensions that ail the country. Dream on. Even if we have a clear winner on election night, the selection of next year’s lucky White House resident seems bound to … Read more
Students are paying a higher price tag for college, but is the quality of their education also increasing, or at least staying stable? A lot of indicators suggest “no.” During the George W. Bush administration, the Spellings Commission found evidence that “the quality of student learning at U.S. colleges and universities is inadequate and, in … Read more
“Trump’s attack on the debate commission is an attack on the election itself,” blares the headline from today’s Washington Post op-ed page. That article was written by former senator John Danforth, who has been a member of the Commission on Presidential Debates since 1994. Danforth, an ordained Episcopal priest whose piety earned him the derisive … Read more
Just as Democratic Party elites and Big Tech try to stamp out the Hunter Biden email story comes another angry demand: Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. Chew on the chilling, delicious irony as Joe Biden tells us he wants to heal the nation while pundits of the left, backing Biden, seek tribunals. There’s nothing like punishing … Read more
Other People’s Money – OPM Any competently taught course in principles of economics should give each student the thrilling sense that he or she is being fitted with an almost miraculous pair of eyeglasses. This special ocular device, however, is worn not on the nose but in the mind. And the fact that it is … Read more
In the great junior-high cafeteria of the American public square, it’s Toobin’s turn to sit alone. . . . Some enraged right-wing Toobin-haters feel compelled to write me because of my experiences with their counterparts across the aisle. (I am sure that there are people who hate Toobin from a left-wing perspective, too, but I … Read more
The conception of the king as a god on Earth, or as god’s representative on Earth, is so widespread as to be nearly universal: Egyptian pharaohs and Japanese emperors are gods or god-men descended from gods; Roman emperors were deified not only after death but during their lifetimes, receiving worship in the temples; the British … Read more