Political Thought
My Patch column this week laments the trick of picking a particular aspect of “the democratic process” as dominant for the sake of a particular issue: … too often disputes about public policy hinge more on which side can use prettier words than which side better captures the will of the public, let alone adhering…
Maybe it’s a small thing, but such ideological tells as the sentence that I’ve emphasized in the following paragraph from an unsigned Projo editorial have been catching my attention more, lately: It’s no violation of the First Amendment for Mr. Chafee, a liberal, to do what he says he will do: Ban his people from…
Speaking of statism, the Providence Journal editorial page betrayed its inclination in that direction, recently, on the topic of alcohol tax: Congratulations. By beating each other’s alcohol tax down to zero, neither New Hampshire nor Massachusetts is collecting revenues that it could. And where does this new era of tax-free booze to the north leave…
Once again, I find I must recommend an inaccessible article in National Review, this one by Gettysburg College history professor Allen Guelzo: The antidote to slavery, Lincoln insisted, was also economic free labor. In the 19th century, free labor was the shorthand term for a particular way of viewing capitalism: as a labor system, in…
Kevin Williamson churns out the economic heresies when he defines “social value” as “the stuff society actually values” and “profits” as “evidence of the creation of social value.” Much of modern discourse is a debate over semantics, but choose the words as you wish, the underlying economic principles remain the same, and Williamson is entirely…
Unfortunately, the decision at National Review to cease providing access to the online issues of the magazine to print subscribers has left me unable to copy and paste interesting passages from its pages, and inasmuch as I’m not going to pay for two subscriptions and like the portability and markability of actual paper pages, I’m…
I said (somewhere) it back when Republicans were in the minority in the House, and even though the filibuster technique has been helpful to causes that I’ve supported in recent years, I’ll say it again: this sounds reasonable to me: … Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat … proposes that lawmakers be on the floor…
RI Bishop Thomas Tobin asks the key question: Nor should the so-called “separation of church and state” be used as a weapon to silence the faith community, or restrict its robust participation in the debate of important public issues. I’ve found that whenever I’ve spoken out on public issues — e.g., abortion, gay marriage or…
Back in 2007, I argued against non-partisan elections in Tiverton. Those who disagreed took a very community-oriented view: ARGUING AGAINST asking Tiverton voters whether they’d like to return to partisan elections after one cycle of nonpartisanism, Charter Review Commission member Frank “Richard” Joslin made two points that have the ring of Rhode Islandry: First, that…
John Fonte’s review of The New Road to Serfdom, by Daniel Hannan, focuses mainly on international policy — and avoiding Europeanization and submission to anti-democratic supranational bodies. However, given periodic discussion around here about the structure of government and of elections, this is the passage that most caught my eye: Hannan is particularly impressed with…
