Written

A water drop and ripples

These are the choices will-to-power policies will drive us toward.

By Justin Katz | May 2, 2024 |

“Had the girl not broken the law by purchasing and using pepper spray, she likely would have been raped — or worse.” Sure, the story Stephen Green is sharing comes from Denmark, and sure, one big advantage we have in the United States is the Second Amendment.  But policies change and, increasingly, our rights can…

A water drop and ripples

I’ve wondered how Americans are getting by in this economy.

By Justin Katz | May 2, 2024 |

This may be part of the answer, and certainly corresponds with my experience:

A water drop and ripples

A reminder for Republicans about immigrants.

By Justin Katz | May 1, 2024 |

They can be won, as James Brooke suggests in the The Sun: In the latest sign of a rightward swing of the pendulum in Latin America, voters in Ecuador opted overwhelmingly for tough anti-crime measures, including joint army and police patrols against cocaine gangs. Ecuador is only one example. This reminder does not mean the…

A water drop and ripples

You can tell how journalists see their role by the stories they cover.

By Justin Katz | May 1, 2024 |

This has become a focus of the Providence Journal’s city reporter: What stories is Russo not covering because she’s spending so much time on this one?  Why is a personnel matter at a private organization newsworthy? As for the content, it finally provides some explanation for a mythical cliché.  I’ve never understood the rule that you…

A water drop and ripples

I’ve lived under a wide variety of partisan combinations in government at the state and federal levels.

By Justin Katz | April 30, 2024 |

With that perspective, I’d suggest that America works better when voters put the adults in charge but then laugh at them through media and entertainment.  Once, adults could be of either party, but they became increasingly of the Republican variety.  Unfortunately, voters’ frustration with the inability to return to adult policies is loosening that rule,…

A water drop and ripples

Western tradition already has the answer to the attempts to undermine it.

By Justin Katz | April 30, 2024 |

That’s why, although I agree with Jordan, here, I think he’s a step away from the key point: We must reframe. A libertarian lean is correct, but valorizing success won’t work. The impulse to identify with the oppressed has to be changed to wanting to help people, to make THEM successful. It’s the principle at…

A water drop and ripples

Why are the key questions of politics so easy to ignore?

By Justin Katz | April 29, 2024 |

This exchange between CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr has made the rounds and received its share of commentary: To my mind, the most telling part is when Collins looks for a comparison among conservatives to progressive bureaucratic government impositions and points to a local library debate. What Barr should have…

A water drop and ripples

Democrats are moving deeper into the dark side of triangulation.

By Justin Katz | April 29, 2024 |

The concept of triangulation used to mean politicians looked at the political landscape and positioned themselves on the field to advance their policy goals.  The worsening development, facilitated by mass media and social media, is the attempt to manipulate the landscape.  That’s where we start to think of the Overton Window, shifting the range of…

A mechanic stares down a destroyed machine

Interest rates have become like rent control.

By Justin Katz | April 25, 2024 |

And they’re both artificial thresholds created by interventionist policies.  realEstateTrent makes a great point, here:   Progressive policies, which shift decision-making to the blunt tool of government, create these unhealthy thresholds everywhere.  People stay on the public dole because they’d have to earn so much money for a job to be worthwhile that no job…

A water drop and ripples

Government-funded journalism is a bad idea.

By Justin Katz | April 25, 2024 |

One suspects mainstream journalists don’t see this as a problem because they can’t imagine reporting any differently just because the governments they support are directly paying them money: And realistically, we’re finding in Rhode Island that government PR is such a lucrative next step for journalists that it’s more a question of whether they work…