Tag Archives

Archive of posts published in the tag: Bret Stephens

The “Woke’ Bastardization of Progressivism

The term ‘Progressive’ has come to mean something Theodore or Franklin Roosevelt would never recognize.  A pejorative for dysfunctional policies detached from any accountability or reason.  While I have come to appreciate the aims of Progressivism at its inception, I still recognize the inevitable flaws of permanent government solutions to every conceivable social problem. Perhaps this ‘woke’ bastardization of the term ‘progressive’ was the inevitable outcome from a movement that was incapable of articulating any limits on government power.

Read More

The Journalistic Malfeasance of the 1619 Project

The 1619 Project is shoddy history and shoddy journalism, debasing an honest accounting of slavery and racism in America; rewriting history to support a narrative rather than illuminating a problem. As we have progressed in racial understanding we seek to slay smaller and smaller dragons. Magnifying these dragons does not make them larger; it only appears so.

Read More

Ancient Liberties and Newfangled Rights

“And he’d warn that the damage being done — to civil order, public property and, most of all perhaps, to the values demonstrators claim to champion — may not be easy to undo. “Rage and phrensy will pull down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation and foresight can build up in a hundred years.””

Read More

Der Sturmer Times

If it had appeared in Breitbart or a similar political tilt, the airwaves would be jammed with condemnations and no apology would suffice. Its proximity in time to the recent shooting at the Chabad in Poway near San Diego would have made it unforgivable.  That is how the New York Times treated far less offensive remarks from Republicans;  Sarah Palin’s use of the word ‘cross hairs’ in a political speech was enough to blame her for the Gabby Giffords shooting.

Read More

Policy vs Culture

Rambunctious rhetoric can damage a position.  So can the abuse and weaponization of institutions that require trust to function.  Obama’s abuse of the IRS for political purposes, and the possible politicization of the FBI stand to cause far more damage than Trump’s reckless tweets, bullying tactics, and idle threats.

Read More

Theoretical Peace

from The Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens writes On Palestinian Statehood But isn’t a Palestinian state a necessity for Israel? Can it maintain its Jewish and democratic character without separating itself from the millions of Palestinians living west of the Jordan

Read More

Palestinian Preference

from The Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens writes On Palestinian Statehood What about the interests of Palestinians? Aren’t they entitled to a state? Maybe. But are they more entitled to one than the Assamese, Basques, Baloch, Corsicans, Druze, Flemish, Kashmiris, Kurds,

Read More

Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds

  If a doctor of oncology treats a thousand patients, but five hundred of them die, is he still a good doctor? If a preacher saves a thousand souls but one hundred end up in hell is he still a

Read More

Why Hillary is Not 50 Points Ahead

From Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, The Apology of Donald Drump:  (Stephen’s fictitious DT speech) So spare me the sensitivity lectures. Spare me the business lectures, too. Those tax returns someone stole and the New York Times published?

Read More

The Real Victim of Hate

from Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal,  The Meaning of An Olympic Snub: In his essay, Mr. Johnson called anti-Semitism a “highly infectious” disease capable of becoming “endemic in certain localities and societies,” and “by no means confined to

Read More

Maybe It’s Trump’s Fault

The intellectuals of the right have a problem with Trump.  The National Review editorial board published a rare condemnation of a Republican candidate and its best writers from Jonah Goldberg to Kevin Williamson have enumerated countless rational arguments about his

Read More

Make Americans Great Again

from Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, The Better Angels of Our Nature When did the decline of American character begin? Maybe it was between July 1969, when two Americans walked on the moon, and a Saturday that August,

Read More

The Stain on the GOP

Bret Stephen tries to interject some reason and facts into the campaign but this seems about as welcome as wisdom and experience. Those of us who thought that such ignorance and prejudice were minor if loud elements of the Republicans

Read More

Bernie’s Road to Serfdom

from Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, What’s Socialism, Dad? When Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez died in 2013, an obscure U.K. parliamentarian tweeted, “Thanks Hugo Chavez for showing that the poor matter and wealth can be shared. He made massive contributions

Read More

The Hobbesian Optimist

From Bret Stephens at the WSJ,  Barack Obama Checks Out: Summing up the president’s worldview, Mr. Goldberg describes him as a “Hobbesian optimist”—which philosophically must be the equivalent of a Jew for Jesus. But Mr. Obama has shown that he

Read More

Extorting the Producers

From Bret Stephens at The WSJ, Bernie’s Wall Street Slander But the reason Mr. Sanders is drawing his big crowds is neither his fanatical sincerity nor his avuncular charm. It’s that he’s preaching class hatred to people besotted by the politics

Read More

The Need for Sober Choices

from The Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens’ America’s Year of Living Dangerously The U.S. has lived through dangerous years before—1968 and 1980 come to mind. Hindsight is often the great redeemer, but both years ended with the American people making

Read More

10 Best Articles of 2015

John Cochrane- economist at his blop. The Grumpy Economist,  Economic Growth. Second, we should separate the tax code from the subsidy and redistribution code.Let us agree, the tax code serves to raise revenue at minimal distortion. All other economic policy

Read More

Sanctified Tantrums

From The Islamic Tantrum by Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal: Before Friday’s carnage in the City of Light, the world was treated to the hideous spectacle of Palestinians knifing Jews in Israel. The supposed motive of these stabbings

Read More

The Real Cost of Virtue

from Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, Farewell to the Era of No Fences: How did this happen? We mistook a holiday from history for the end of it. We built a fenceless world on the wrong set of

Read More