Within Kevin Williamson’s takedown of the mindlessness of bureacracy (And please, read the whole thing), lies this interesting nugget: Over the years, economic success and administrative demands eventually transform bands of roving bandits into bands of stationary bandits. One popular theory of the state — one that is pretty well-supported by the historical evidence in… Read More If Government is Banditry, Anarchy is Impossible
It’s a glorious read, especially the part where he points out that the state is a prime driver of it (h/t Protein Wisdom): First, the entitlement state exists primarily to transfer wealth regressively, from the working-age population to the retired elderly who, after a lifetime of accumulation, are the wealthiest age cohort. Second, big, regulatory… Read More George Will Takes Bernie Sanders to School
This tweet by Mickey Kaus reminds me of an irritating chesnut that pro-immigration types love to trot out whenever they encounter disagreement. It usually takes the form of “Well, it’s a shame that the Indians didn’t think of border control!” Or something equally smug. It’s stupid for two reasons: The Indians did think of that.… Read More Please Stop Using The Indians in Immigration Arguments
So Sayeth Thomas Williams over at Breitbart. Rather, the Pope is a critic of the spiritual malaise involved of the worship of Mammon. As he should be. But he never has said, or even suggested, that the free market be replaced with another economic system. Francis’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, famously distinguished between capitalism… Read More The Pope is Not a Communist
This is not the primary we thought we would be having. But it’s the kind of primary we should have expected. Every four years, Republican voters hope to get a new candidate vetted by debate and campaign who articulates conservative principles, recommends conservative policies, and demonstrates the qualities of a leader. Instead, we get one of… Read More Scott Walker’s Out, and I May Be, Too.
Megan McArdle: Bubbles are not fundamentally about evil people doing evil things. They are not even about stupid people doing stupid things. No, the problem with bubbles is worse: It’s quite ordinary people, doing stupid things that a trick of the light has made appear very smart. Every time you hear that the markets or… Read More Quote of the Day – Housing Crisis Edition
I have had little to say so far about the GOP Primary, because a) it’s too early, and b) the last GOP Primary made me numb. I was so utterly disappointed by the results of the primary, and then the general election, that getting myself all whooped up about this one seems ridiculous to me.… Read More Trump and Caring About Politics
For a long time, we were lost in the darkness. Unable to tell what was problematic, or, if we dared push past our privelege to consider if it was problematic, to know just how problematic it was. Those. Days. Are. Over. For example, of course you knew that Wonder Woman’s costume was Problematic. That’s a… Read More Everything’s a Problem is the Tumblr You Didn’t Know You Needed
Dear Mr. Cook, We’re an Apple family. My wife and I have been using Macs exclusively for years (saving the Dell laptop I have from work). We use iPhones. We even have a Time Machine. We’ve all but decided to swap out our old Roku for an Apple TV. We’re not techies; neither of us could… Read More An Open Letter to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Computer
Thanks to the Daily Caller for sparing me the trouble of reading the Super-HRC Supporters manifesto of fail. Is Hillary Clinton polarizing? Always has been. Kind of a no-brainer. Is Hillary Clinton calculating? I should hope so. Politicans that don’t calculate are failures. What I think this means is “insincere”, so let’s move on to…… Read More In Which I Say All the Things I’m Not Allowed to Say About Hillary Clinton
Content Blues 