Libertarian Paternalism?

Back in 1983, Joe Sobran took George Will apart in his American Spectator article “George Will and the Contemporary Political Conversation.” He argued, rather justly, that Will’s self-proclaimed “Toryism” was preening and scored unfair points against the rest of American conservatism (a bit like Compassionate Conservatism.) As Sobran pointed out, Will’s conservatism saw […]

forehead, right hand, whatever

In case it’s blowing by you, the IRS now wants to know what you spend as you spend it. Figure in a few years cash will be a “loophole” that needs closing? Maybe that’s paranoid. Or maybe not: after all, Life take Visa (and other abominations).
Recommended by the Bush administration, payment-card […]

Marxist Conmanship

I’ve been reading through a 1987 anthology of the American Spectator. After watching 50%+/- of America swoon for Obama’s shined-up Marxist nostrums for the past year, I enjoyed this analogy from a Polish dissident writing in 1983:

“Suppose an aircraft designer talks the Boeing Company into financing an airplane which, according to its creator, is […]

Compassion and Conservatives

It’s an article of faith on the Left that consevatives are greedy plutocrats who would sell their grandmothers if a market existed for them. In their mythology, liberalism has a monopoly on compassion and empathy. The Daily Mail has an interesting piece up today on social attitudes and political ideology. The data is […]

Random thought.

Does anyone else find it funny that the democrats had a fit in 2000 when Bush lost the popular vote but won the Presidency, yet the left rejoices when the the popular vote of banning gay marriage in California is overturned by the court?
In one case, the US Supreme Court overturns the recount in Florida […]

Somewhere. . .

. . .the ghost of Mary Jo Kopechne is smiling.
The wheels of justice grind slowly, but grind they do.
Lest we forget:

Earlier that morning, two fishermen saw the overturned car in the water and called the police.[1] A diver was sent down and discovered Kopechne’s body. The diver, John Farrar, later testified at the inquest […]

“Liberal” — If the Left isn’t using it, can we have it back?

These days, no one wants to be a liberal. Much of the Democratic Party has dropped liberal from its lexicon. Now they call themselves “Progressives.” In some ways, that’s a refreshing bit of honesty. If you have a sense of history, you remember that Progressive was the self-designation of the pro-Soviet […]

Yeah, THAT’S Democratic.

Susan Estrich, a feminist and high-profile Hillary supprter, recently made one of the most revealing statements of the primary season:
If you can remember that far back, this was supposed to be another one of those “Year of the Woman” elections, the first time a woman was entering the race as the frontrunner for her party’s […]

the New Left and Liberal Fascism

The “New Left” has come up several times, here, recently, and J. Wesley’s review of Ron Radosh’s book puts me in mind of an longish panel discussion during which Ron Radosh and Fred Siegel, both New Left escapees, managed to quibble very interestingly. As Michael Ledeen, one of my heroes among public intellectuals, was […]

and now for something completely different

The Volokh Conspiracy - “Moral Consideration of Plants”:
I swear, this has absolutely nothing to do with the latter state of Christendom. Really.

The Volokh Conspiracy - "Moral Consideration of Plants": via kwout

No one is having any issues here. It’s business as usual, for the majority who conclude that “something bad” is “morally impermissible” if […]