Monthly Archive: December 2011

Ta-Nehisi recently wrote: As an aside, I think there’s an essay to be written about why any accusation of a racial offense is so often reduced to “Are you a racist?” It would be...

(Previously, Parts 1,  2,  3 , 4 and 5) Since the subject of this long (and getting longer!) discursion is possessions, wealth and culture; and since I have (nominally) positioned myself, on the subject of consumerism, as a scold, let’s...

The first of probably quite a few posts that I’ll be writing about Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan. I think Rufus is basically right in his understanding of Hobbes here, but Leviathan is, shall we...

Forgive me: another post born from the intellectual wellspring that is Ron Paul’s Iowa boomlet. But this one has little to do with the man himself. Instead, I want to take a closer look...

Joe went back out out to Arizona to visit his family, so this week it’s been me and Dave in the shop, slinging epoxy and trading stories. This one was especially amusing, especially since...

I had an odd ethical dilemma this week, that – since it was attached to governmental oversight and regulation – I thought I might share with you. Part of what my company does is...

My first Friday Night Jukebox. This one is purely self-indulgent so please forgive. The afternoon set from Phish’s legendary Big Cypress concert on NYE 1999. Somewhere in the crowd I am dancing with my friends,...

Oy.  In what will surely generate some interesting mental gymnastics from Koz and others attempting to explain how awesome this idea is/is really done more by liberals, the Virginia GOP willow require voters to...

One of the subjects I am most passionate about is the notion of creating urban-suburban-rural partnerships to drive economic prosperity. Much of this interest lays in my own experience of traveling frequently between my job in...

I’d like to raise a subject for discussion that is not that walking, talking amalgamation of ambiguity that goes by the name of “Ron Paul” because I think there’s plenty of talk about him going on...

My colleague Ryan Bonneville won the coveted Moore Award Nomination on Andrew Sullivan’s for this quote from his defense of Ron Paul. By all accounts, Barack Obama is a nice guy. He’s a good...

The environment is a tricky issue for libertarianism, in many ways environmental issues are “ideologically inconvenient” for libertarians – life would be easier if they didn’t exist.  Of course that’s not sufficient reason to...

Shortly after starting my first job as a grocery clerk, which required me to wear a white oxford shirt every day, my dad showed me how to hand-wash my collar before it went in...

I think it’s fair to say that, Barack Obama aside, no politician of the current moment has attracted as passionate, enduring, and diverse a following as Ron Paul. The heterogeneity of their constituents is probably...

I’m a big enough man to admit it: I was wrong about Ron Paul. Oh, not that he shouldn’t be president. I still believe that; in fact, I believe that even more now than...

For a long time I’ve gone by the alias ‘Mike at The Big Stick’ around the internet so it will probably take some time for me to get used to writing under my real...

The next installment of my Great Cases series is available at my sub-blog. Today’s offering — Fletcher v. Peck. I offer you political corruption, the origin story of the states of Alabama and Mississippi, and...

The latest little tempest in a teapot we’ve had here on the internets involves an essay on Parental Licensure written by Andrew Cohen at the usually significantly different kind of crazy Libertarian website Bleeding...