Political Realities
Progress emanates from the work of a very few, unpredictably and contrary to conventional wisdom. The protection of freedom and individual rights for these few benefits us all more than the rights accruing only to the majority.
When Policy Meets Reality
Policy is always subject to political reality.
Expert Failure
“Those problems include: over reliance on mathematical models that can be tweaked for ideological ends where empirical observation and measurement provide insufficient support for the preferred policy—or would militate against it if taken into account.”
A Conservative Revolution
There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as a conservative revolution, but that is approximately what the Founding Fathers carried out.
Election Words
Class Trumps Race
Silence is consent
What you tolerate you teach
Demographics is not destiny
HKO Political Thoughts 2024 10 24
Blaming the electoral college is like blaming the rules after the game is over. The rules will not change anytime soon, so they would be wise to just accept this and recognize that blaming the voters is a fool’s errand. Clinging to progressive purity will not win elections.
Losing the Working Class
Married to a binary one-dimensional interest spectrum, the Democrats only consider the economic interests at stake and even then, only consider the immediate consequences. Perhaps the working class is responding to more than their immediate economic interests, and are reacting to cultural differences, urban crime, and the illiberalness that has infected our institutions. Throwing money at a problem that is not economic at its source will not persuade the working class.
An Alliance with Barbarism
It is also why it is important to remember the principle behind the divided government and intentional firewalls to democracy designed in our constitution: that human nature is permanently flawed and cannot be trusted with concentrated power, whether that power originates in the divine right of kings or the ‘will of the people’. Where our founding came from the thinking of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, Progressivism grew from the historicism of Hegel, Pragmatism (capital ‘P’), and social scientific thinking that thought principles of the physical sciences could be applied to the social realm. Progressivism in the U.S. was tempered by the Constitution, but it traveled in the same boat as political ideologies that considered human nature malleable and capable of improvement, if not perfection,
by the state if it is in the right hands.
Accepting human flaws and governing accordingly has proven far less oppressive than those who spoke in the name of ‘the people’ in their grand schemes to improve humanity.
The Great Lie of American Politics
“But that’s the great lie of American politics (and of democracy at large): that the people cannot fail but can only be failed.”
End DEI !
“What I saw was a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob. “
The Identity Trap
I disagree with Mounk that this shift is sudden. It has been ignored, tolerated, and excused for decades. It is shameful that it took the overt antiSemitism displayed after October 7 for it to be recognized for what it is.
We Have Only Seen the Tip of the Iceberg
With all of the claims for diversity the one they need the most is intellectual diversity. It is fine to discuss critical theory and Marxism but not without the balance of constitutional democracy and free markets. It is shameful when graduates have studied Howard Zinn, Karl Marx, or Ibram Kindi but have never heard of Gordon Wood, Friedrich Hayek, or Thomas Sowell. Hiring practices should seek a far more balanced faculty.
Finally Reaching Their Moment of Shame
“If a member of an oppressor class says something edgy, it is a form of violence. If a member of an oppressed class commits actual violence, it’s speech.”
The Road to Censorship
“What if human beings are merely creatures that take whatever shape is imposed on them by the impress and promptings of the culture in which they are situated? If so, then controlling the culture becomes imperative. And politics must saturate every nook and cranny of life. And this saturation will, inevitably, mean controlling what people say and hear and read and think and teach. Shaping the consciousness of the people — purging the people of what Marxists call “false consciousness” — becomes the great, the encompassing political project.”