Political Thought
Now here’s a concept too often missing in politics. It was spoken by the Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, on the Today Show Friday. (Lauer was interviewing the Dreamy One about the public pension and health bill just passed by the NJ Assembly.) Matt Lauer: Your approval rating — 47% of the people in…
The Providence Journal editorial board highlights a piece of legislation that, while unlikely to become law, illustrates the potential consequences of consolidation for the sake of efficiency and ease: … Sen. John Tassoni (D.-Smithfield) — a member of the state’s AFL-CIO executive board, former business agent for the state’s largest public-employees union, AFSCME Council 94,…
I’ll believe it when I see it. So starts the latest post by Seth Godin. It’s apropos given the current controversy surrounding the bin Laden death photos. We have to accept that once we start down the slippery slope of always (or never) believing, we end up in Alice-in-Wonderland territory. Do you have firsthand knowledge…
Seth Godin has advice for the little guy. Like small business or even a small state. Economies of scale are well understood. Bigger factories are more efficient, bigger distribution networks are more efficient, bigger ad campaigns can be more efficient. It’s often hard to defeat a major competitor, particularly if the market is looking for…
Andrew suggested that government spending cannot continue to go up in a straight line indefinitely, on last night’s Matt Allen Show. Stream by clicking here, or download it.
A recent iteration of First Things‘ “While We’re at It” feature mentioned the Wall Street Journal lament of feminist Erica Jong that breeding and raising children is a fad that just won’t die. From the lament: Unless you’ve been living on another planet, you know that we have endured an orgy of motherphilia for at…
Theodore Gatchel notes a perpetual problem facing a public that wishes to be informed: There are so many experts on virtually every subject imaginable that anyone who relies on them for information is faced with the problem of determining which experts to trust. Unfortunately, almost everyone falls in that category. Investors rely on experts for…
It always seems a bit silly, to me, to fight over words. Use of the word “socialism,” for example, tends to be descriptive among conservatives. That is, we use it because we’re trying to describe a system or institution that we’re addressing, not because it polls badly and we want to throw tar on an…
Historian Paul Rahe offers his perspective on the Tea Party. An extended excerpt: Over almost a century, under the influence of the Progressives and their heirs—the proponents of the New Deal, the Great Society, and Barack Obama’s New Foundation we have experienced a gradual consolidation of power in the federal government. Legislative responsibilities have been…
It’s unfortunate that Rich Lowry’s article in the January 24 National Review, “What the Whigs Knew,” is inaccessible except to subscribers, but two portions are worth typing out: [Eva] Moskowitz combines a fiery faith in the ability of all children to learn with a traditional — nay, downright retrograde — means of molding them into…
