I finally finished reading Hitch-22, and this passage near the very end really caught my eye: It is not only true that the test of knowledge is an acute and cultivated awareness of how little one knows (as Socrates knew so well), it is true that the unbounded areas and fields of one’s ignorance are […]
(Re-post) Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is unquestionably one of the most famous speeches in American history. In listening to the speech today, I found the following passages that aren’t as often quoted to be some of the most powerful lines in the speech. In a sense we have come to […]
Governor Moonbeam? Or Governor Death Ray? You decide: Answering critics at a solar ribbon-cutting earlier this year, Gov. Jerry Brown laid down the gauntlet, affirming his commitment to solar energy and saying he would “crush” opponents of solar. “There are going to be screw-ups. There are going to be bankruptcies. There’ll be indictments and there’ll […]
“Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods.” – H.L. Mencken I don’t know about you but I’m very eager for this Auction Day to be over with.
[I]f you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things. And you know what? It’s worked before, because it feeds into the […]
If you haven’t been over to The Agitator recently to read what Radley Balko’s guest bloggers have been writing in his absence over the last several weeks, you are missing some grade A quality posts. This post from William Anderson “Costs and Benefits of Modern ‘Sex Crime’ Witch Hunts” is the creme de la creme. […]
From J.D. Tuccille at Reason Hit’n’Run: But I still think I’m correct in looking at the presidential race and seeing anything but an easy call. Strictly speaking, I see two midgets locked in a slap fight, and the loser is us as we confront the fact that one of them will be left standing. Well […]
Agitator guest blogger Maggie McNeil made some very good points in a post she titled “Godwin’s Law” that dovetail nicely with a point I was trying to make in another post about government enforcing immoral laws. Prior to reading the post, I wasn’t familiar with Godwin’s Law (“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability […]
Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote an excellent article in yesterday’s Washington Post entitled: Killing vs. Squealing. The judge laments that the Republicans in the congress aren’t so much concerned about the fact that President Obama is acting as a third-world warlord thug killing individuals he picks out from a deck of “baseball cards” in Yemen, Pakistan, […]
David Brooks has fired up Radley Balko. And I highly recommend you go read Radley’s whole piece… It’s worth it. One bit that I found particularly poignant, regarding why democratic politics, in particular, is not worthy of blind deference: Politics—the quest for power because you’re sure that you, more than others, know what’s best for […]
What troubles me about this… I think it’s beyond hypocrisy. I think it’s something to do with class. A lot of people have accused Obama of class warfare, but in the wrong direction. I believe this is Obama chortling with Jimmy Fallon about lower class people. Do we believe, even for a second, that if […]
The AP, lamenting the fact that so many new college grads are having trouble finding work: College graduates who majored in zoology, anthropology, philosophy, art history and humanities were among the least likely to find jobs appropriate to their education level Actually, like the guy interviewed with a “creative writing” degree who now works as […]
From M.S. @ The Economist’s Democracy In America blog: To say that most American political discourse takes place at the intellectual level of baboons would be an insult to baboons. Baboons are capable of handling two-factor reasoning problems: if I eat all the bananas now, I’ll have none left for later; better eat enough to […]
From Steven Greenhut, writing at Reason: Americans suffer under the delusion that transportation systems are just that—systems for transporting people from one destination to another. What most of us fail to recognize is that the politicians, activists and planners who play the greatest role in creating those systems have far different goals than improving the […]
Arnold Kling, on the “gotcha” mentality of partisanism: If your goal is to accumulate a fan base and fire them up, then of course calling intellectual fouls on the other side is the way to go. However, I claim that if your goal is to contribute to a discussion in which fair-minded people will consider […]
Over at Reason, Mike Riggs responded to President Obama’s former Green Jobs czar Van Jones’ tirade about “so-called libertarians” at an Occupy rally in L.A. In case you missed it, Van Jones said that libertarians “say they love America but they hate the people, the brown folk, the gays, the lesbians, the people with piercings.” […]
Is there a more worthless phrase on the political landscape than “judicial activism”? And a court that gave us Bush v. Gore and Citizens United will prove conclusively that it sees no limits on its power, no need to defer to those elected to make our laws. A Supreme Court that is supposed to give […]
The sweater vested theocrat Rick Santorum has struck again, this time promising to “vigorously” enforce obscenity laws. Tom Knighton at United Liberty thinks that there are higher priorities facing the next president than lax enforcement of pornography statutes writing: Take a look around for a moment. We have a nation that is falling apart. The […]
From Don Boudreaux. He’s addressing the Cato/Koch lawsuit*, but more specifically addressing the question of ideas-based ideological battles vs. the more common political election-based battles: At the end of the day in any society, political office holders largely reflect the culture and climate of ideas that prevail in that society. The overwhelming effects of culture […]
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is unquestionably one of the most infamous famous speeches in American history. In listening to the speech today, I found the following passages that aren’t as often quoted to be some of the most powerful lines in the speech. In a sense we have come to […]