Posted in Politics, terrorism, war, tagged Iran, Israel on May 14, 2008 | No Comments »
Paul Mirengoff dissects the Democrats’ “politics of fear” charge, showing that it is (a) question-begging and (b) baseless.
I find it puzzling that people dismiss talk of terrorism as well as the threat from Iran and its quest for nuclear weapons, its much-expressed hatred of Israel, and its conduct of war by proxy as “the politics [...]
Posted in Politics, tagged Obama on May 14, 2008 | No Comments »
Charles Johnson counts the skeletons in Obama’s closet. And we’ve barely opened the door….
Posted in Politics on May 13, 2008 | No Comments »
Antoine Roquentin, the protagonist of Sartre’s Nausea, loves humanity in general—but despises individual people. Rasmussen finds that American voters have the same sort of attitude about Democrats. They strongly favor Democrats in general—they now prefer Democrats to Republicans on every one of ten issues—but nevertheless have much less favorable attitudes toward particular Democratic [...]
Posted in Equality, Politics, tagged affirmative action on May 12, 2008 | No Comments »
Richard D. Kahlenburg urges Barack Obama to propose ending race-based affirmative action, substituting class-based affirmative action in its place—mostly as a political ploy to move “beyond race” while still channeling mopst fo the program’s benefits to minorities. Commenters give some arguments that Kahlenburg’s political analysis leaves out:
There’s no conflict between academic merit and the [...]
Posted in Distributive Justice, Equality, Politics, economics, tagged minimum wage on May 12, 2008 | No Comments »
Megan McArdle writes disapprovingly of the minimum wage:
Both at Crooked Timber, and in my own beloved comment threads, the suggestion has been made that the minimum wage is really swell because it gets rid of low-productivity jobs that only pay the minimum wage.
This sounds lovely–if you are the kind of person who has the skills [...]
Posted in Politics, terrorism, war on May 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
One of the things that bothers me about the current state of our politics is the lack of seriousness we display in the war on terror. This morning, evidence for this is all around. Thirty-six detainees at Guantanamo have been released only to return to jihad; one alum recently blew himself and four [...]
Posted in Distributive Justice, Equality, Politics, Rationality, economics, tagged conservatism, happiness, liberalism on May 8, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I wrote earlier about Pew research findings that Republicans are happier than Democrats, and, generally, conservatives are happier than liberals. Here was my explanation:
I think it’s likely that happy people are more likely to be Republicans, while unhappy people are more likely to be Democrats, for unhappiness gives one an incentive to seek change, [...]
Posted in Politics, foreign policy, terrorism, war, tagged nuclear weapons, Obama on May 7, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Gordon Chang isn’t being metaphorical:
Keeping the ultimate weapon out of the hands of the Iranians is, as they say, “a question of civilization.” After all, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made himself famous for his chatter about “wiping Israel off the map,” and Hassan Abassi, a senior member of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards, once said, [...]
Posted in Politics, law, tagged Obama on May 7, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I’ve been saying, from very early in the campaign, that Barack Obama is not a new kind of politician; he’s an old kind, a representative of the Democratic (in this case, Chicago) machine. The link with Tony Rezko has provided some evidence for that. Now, additional evidence: Obama has promised the Teamsters that [...]
Posted in Politics, economics, tagged taxes on May 7, 2008 | No Comments »
Greg Mankiw observes a fundamental split on tax policy, reflecting an underlying split in political philosophy:
If you think it is the job of government to take from Peter to pay Paul, and if Peter can move around the globe, then you need international tax cooperation. Otherwise, some countries will become nations of Peters, leaving all [...]
