Political Thought
In response to Mary Eberstadt’s thought-provoking piece about the accurate prognostications of Humanae Vitae, Todd Zywicki notes (and Glenn Reynolds seconds) the possibility of a cost-benefit analysis with respect to the sexual revolution. It’s difficult to draw a boundary around the topic; to put it in the form of a question that I posed a…
Ed Achorn had a piece yesterday on John Adams and recommended taking in the HBO mini-series that is now out on DVD (I hope to). Coincidentally, I had been thinking about Adams thanks to Matt Allen’s (gratuitous plug!) Independence Day show over the past weekend, during which he read the Declaration of Independence and extolled…
Some aspects of Marxism have a sort of common-sense appeal on first reading. Those of a conservative bent may feel something to be awry, but it takes some sifting to raise, and even then the subtleties foil discussion with those of differing inclinations. Consider Mickey Kaus’s confession of Obamaesque snobbery (via Instapundit): If Democrats had…
I get that winning clients sometimes requires wooing them — especially in the glamor-obsessed entertainment industry. As a government activity, however, this makes me very uncomfortable: When Steven Feinberg entertains people in the television and moviemaking industry, he entertains them in style. He sprang for the Ravioli al Filetto at Venda’s Café, the rib-eye special…
My grimly favorite reaction to the protests which dogged the Olympic flame through London, Paris and other cities was by a Beijing Olympic official, curiously not named in this government sanctioned article, who said that the protests “blasphemed the Olympic spirit.” The irony that the actions of the goons and thugs who have ruled China…
But let’s not lose sight of a principle that looms pretty large in conservative philosophy: that social pressure is often the appropriate means of guiding individuals toward behavior that is healthy for society. This concept puts conservatives at the obvious political disadvantage of giving liberals cover to declare that they judge nothing but judgement and…
Tom Sgouros decries the lack of worthy investments for people with money. The problem, he’s arguing, isn’t that the wealthy don’t have the money to invest; it’s that they have nowhere to invest it; they’re holding it or directing it to safer investments. Me, I’ll take his argument at face value, because I think he…
On January 28, the London Telegraph reported that 10 percent of the city’s hospitals had denied surgeries to smokers and the obese. Doctors were warning the elderly that they were next; “the health care system cannot afford to give free health care to everyone.” In Canada, citizens weren’t allowed to use anything but government healthcare.…
One can hear, in the expected quarters, the admonition that Eliot Spitzer’s $80,000 whoring habit is a private matter. I wonder how many who’d make that argument also see David Richardson’s travails in Providence — where he recently requested proof of the citizenship status of an Hispanic customer to his store — as private. I…
