Reading Gingrich in D.C.
Andrew Ferguson reads New Gingrich’s 21 books so you don’t have to. Gingrich’s overblown reputation as an intellectual is well-trodden ground, but what I found interesting is what the books reveal about his weird...
Monthly Archive: June 2011
Well Intentioned Hysteria
If I told you that hundreds of abducted, runaway or thrown-away children in the United States fall into prostitution annually, you’d probably respond with empathy for that issue. How awful that kids — just-pubescent or...
Nozick and Process-Defective Fundamental Explanations
You want some real criticism of Robert Nozick? Here, let me show you how it’s done.
Rawlsekianism Reloaded: Normative justification
~ by Murali Recent comments by jfxgillis and Jason regarding libertarianism and Nozick have prompted a number of replies by myself and I have been promising for some time a guest post on how...
Video Games are Protected Speech
In a 7-2 vote, the US Supreme Court ruled today that violent video games cannot be prevented from being sold/rented to minors. The two were Breyer and Thomas (together again) arguing that we already...
Because you said so
When I meet new people and tell them I’m a pediatrician, there are a handful of common responses I get. There’s usually a remark about how much I must love kids. (Most of the...
Same-Sex Marriage in New York
It seems appropriate to have a thread. To kick things off on an appropriately contentious note, I’ll repeat that I’m more of a pessimist than most on the pro-SSM side. Law is a powerful...
Competition and Inequality
In my last post, Labour and the American Middle Class, I expressed my scepticism of the ability of unions to improve the incomes of the disadvantaged. However, this still leaves the question of how...
One More Note on Israel
Andrew Sullivan, responding to Jeffrey Goldberg, writes: If no American Jew can conceive of a situation in which they would walk away from Israel, then there is no leverage at all to persuade Israel...
Song for Stephen Metcalf
For those interested, Metcalf responds to his critics (including our own Mark Thompson) here.
Immigration, Inequality and Pie
Tim Lee has an excellent response up to this post by NRO’s Daniel Foster, who writes: Punishing a minor by removing him from the culture he’s adopted as his own, for the crimes of...
Classical Liberalism in America
So, for many readers of my work there’s a sense that I am wishy-washy on a number of issues (though hopefully they also notice where I am consistent: against the war on drugs, for...
Why I Hunt
~ by Mike at the Big Stick Back in February at my own blog I wrote a review of The Wild Within, a new Travel channel show featuring Steve Rinella. The series is based...
Best Summary Judgment Motion Ever
Mark Cuban’s lawyer may be my new hero. This summary judgment motion in a presumably complex, though no doubt frivolous, shareholder suit from Ross Perot, Jr. cannot possibly be topped for its combination of...
Game of Thrones Bookclub (Week Four)
I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to write about one particular part of this book: the fight between Bronn and Ser Vardis Egen. If you haven’t already noticed, A Song of Ice and Fire...
Strategy and politics in Afghanistan
I bridle at the contention – apparently endorsed by all but one of the Republican presidential candidates – that a bunch of unelected generals should be dictating foreign policy. If President Obama believes that...
Notes on the Wicked Son
The reasons why people initially cared about Allison Benedikt’s essay on … something to do with changing her mind about Israel remain mysterious to me. Its sentiments were anything but new to this world;...
LeBron James and the creative class
Does the LeBron-Cleveland saga reflect the anxieties of modern American life?* Bear with me for a moment: A monumentally talented product from the old industrial heartland flees his hometown and a band of hardworking**...
Is greed the real villain in the war on drugs?
I have a piece up at Forbes patiently explaining the difference between black markets and free markets and why the drug war cannot be laid at the feet of greedy capitalists. It’s a response...
The policy illusion
Adam Schaeffer responds to my school choice / single-payer post: Kain is right that many school choice advocates want a single-payer, government voucher system. But he’s absolutely wrong to imply the libertarian preference is...
