Daily Archive: November 17, 2010

/// November 17, 2010

Comparing the Faiths of Presidents Washington and Obama

In my last post I noted, provocatively, that there is more evidence for President Obama’s “mere Christianity,” than for Washington’s. A commenter challenged me with Peter Lillback’s “George Washington’s Sacred Fire.” I’ve read the...

Erik Kain

/// November 17, 2010

Playing games with the deficit

“To the extent that Washington is "broken" (and I’d argue it’s less broken than some suggest) it’s because it suffers from being, unusually, both fat and musclebound. No wonder it finds it difficult to...

Mark of New Jersey

/// November 17, 2010

In Which NJ Leads the Way on Freedoms

It’s a rare day indeed that I get to say this, but today I’m quite proud of my state’s elected representatives in the State House: State senators Michael J. Doherty (R- Hunterdon) and James Beach...

Jason Kuznicki

/// November 17, 2010

Whose Warmest Heart Recoiled at War

During World War II, Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall asked average soldiers how they conducted themselves in battle. Before that, it had always been assumed that the average soldier would kill in combat simply because...

D.A. Ridgely

/// November 17, 2010

The 10 Principles of Economics, Translated

I am not an economist, nor do I play one on the internet. In fact, I’ve never taken a formal course in economics in my life. (A fact which my several economist friends occasionally...

James Hanley

/// November 17, 2010

So What Should Be Done?

In my first substantive post I suggested not only that perhaps the stimulus had failed, but that we needed to make a major change in our approach, going so far as to suggest that...

Jason Kuznicki

/// November 17, 2010

The Moral Equivalent of Monarchy

Matt Yglesias plumps for monarchy, based on — what else? — human nature: [I]t seems inevitable in any country for some individual to end up serving the functional role of the king. Humans are...

D.A. Ridgely

/// November 17, 2010

Don’t Set The Doomsday Clock Ahead Quite Yet

As a general rule, congressional bipartisanship is the political equivalent of the Crips and the Bloods banding together to rob the rest of the neighborhood. (If only we had antitrust laws applicable to our...

J.L. Wall

/// November 17, 2010

Springsteen’s America vs. Reagan’s America (or, Still More on Exceptionalism)

I quoted Jeff MacGregor the other day on Bruce Springsteen and Ronald Reagan: Maybe the most interesting thing you can say about American art and culture over the past 30 years is that at...

Erik Kain

/// November 17, 2010

The Census and the Republican Victory in the House

The Republican sweep of the House of Representatives is enough a triumph in its own right, but lost in the shuffle is a factor far more important than mere congressional gains: following the 2010...

Erik Kain

/// November 17, 2010

A culture war truce?

A few weeks ago, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a possible dark-horse candidate for the 2012 GOP presidential race, urged Republicans and conservatives to make a truce on social issues and focus instead on economics. Daniels...