“The problem for Warren (who should know better) and others like her (who often don’t) is that there is a lot more juice in the moralistic account of economic problems than in the economic account of economic problems. To make things worse, the moralistic account offered by Senator Warren is untrue. Americans are not incapable of being anything other than passive victims of forces beyond their control. “
Read More“..this is not Donald Trump’s America or Elizabeth Warren’s America but ours and Walt Whitman’s and John Coltrane’s and Herman Melville’s and Toni Morrison’s, and that if we really love this country, then that can only be because we love the people in it, the ones who are with us still and the ones who have been, who are “not enemies but friends.”
Read MoreI realize no one is a villain in their own eyes and that we can rationalize any means to fit the end if it is important enough. Our failure to recognize the way we are seen by others and our own failures sacrifices any legitimacy. Voters will tolerate mistakes, gaffes, and failures, but they will not tolerate contempt.
Read More“Being poor is the worst kind of competitive advantage to have, and only two kinds of people pursue that advantage as a matter of national policy. “
Read More“I do not believe that only those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. Plenty of people who study history are entirely capable of making the same mistakes as their ancestors, and worse ones, too. “
Read MoreBoth sides refuse to re-examine the proper role of the presidency, and focus on the president in power. It may seem unrealistic to return to constitutional norms, but the alternative seems to be an escalation of the bitterness of our politics.
Read More“Those of you with $1,001 in savings worth have more in the bank than the great majority of all Americans. That is not because Bill Gates and you hoovered all the money up — it is because a great many Americans do not save very much.”
Read MoreLike all ideologies capitalism evolves with experience and adjusts to failures and social evolution. It never achieves perfection, but its endurance indicates a strength that competing ideologies lack. We can learn much from the ones that failed, though it seems every generation is cursed to try them again. The ones that succeed are subject to be taken for granted. It is the job of the educational institutions to transfer the understanding of our critical institutions, and their failure is crippling.
Read MoreThe elite have remained in outrage mode, blaming everything for this upset except their own complicity in marginalizing a very large segment of the nation, first with neglect and then compounded with contempt.
Read More“A relatively small number of high-growth firms has accounted for a very large share of economic growth in the United States in the past several decades. That represents wealth creation, not a wealth transfer.”
Read MoreWhen you rob Peter to pay Paul you can count on Paul’s approval, but you can also count on Peter moving to another more friendly place. When you try to build a wall to keep Peter in, you also discourage Peters from moving here, and you encourage young and enterprising Peters to move away BEFORE they become wealthy enough to be worth robbing.
Warren’s policy is as destructive of our long term financial health as any policy we can imagine.
Read MoreWarren uses ‘rich people’ as a scapegoat in the same way the classical bigots of history used religious and ethnic vulnerable minorities and the ‘others’. It is a form of intellectual bigotry and is clouded in the same lethal combination of ignorance and dishonesty.
Read More“Because Sweden is well-governed, it treats its tax regime as a question of revenue rather than a question of so-called social justice…”
Read More“the worst forms of tyranny very much include majoritarian tyranny. One might think that the Trump presidency would cause progressives to think twice about what William F. Buckley Jr. dismissed as “the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.”
Read MoreFrom National Review, Kevin Williams’ China’s Population Problem: Governments always operate in ignorance, and authoritarian governments suffer from this more than the governments of liberal societies. That is because in liberal societies, the spontaneous orders of markets, civil society, and…
Read MoreHalf of Trump’s supporters like his in your face, hit back twice as hard, refusal to be intimidated, trolling, protocol style. The other half fear the poorly thought, lunatic, illiberal, and authoritarian ideas and behavior of the Democrats much more than the ego and unpredictability of Trump. The Kavanaugh hearing was a live rehearsal of how they handle power, like a self righteous mob.
Read MoreFounders considered the Electoral College their crowning achievement of the Constitutional Convention. The divisions by state make the system less corruptible; the hanging chad problem in Florida was limited to one area of one state. The system requires a candidate to appeal to a broad range of interests, not just the interests of a small if heavily populated area.
Read More“…the real evils of censorship and suppression are considerably worse than the hypothetical troubles that a more liberal attitude toward unpopular speech might risk.”
Read More“..the desire for popularity is the original sin of the American intellectual: When he subordinates his independent mind to the demands of the herd, he ceases to perform any useful function. He abandons culture for Instant Culture, discourse for antidiscourse, and truth-seeking for status-seeking.”
Read MoreWhile the Progressives imbued the administrative state with moral and political authority they overestimated its competence. The second false assumption was that this uber-qualified elite would be capable of managing a complex society while trying to fulfill and endless list of social objectives.
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