I take this from David Leonhardt’s NYTimes op ed piece of, Dec. 14, Opposition to Health Law Is Steeped in Tradition “The opposition stems from the tension between two competing traditions in the American economy. One is the laissez-faire tradition that celebrates individuality and risk-taking. The other is the progressive tradition that says people have [...]
Archive for the ‘Political Science’ category
Immanuel Kant: “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.”
December 21, 2010What is one to make of the Tea Party?
September 19, 2010What is one to make of the Tea Party? Where does it fall on the left/right, or liberal/conservative line that separates our national political parties? And how does the Tea Party affect the division into Red and Blue states that we have become accustomed to see on the electoral map? To grasp the meaning of [...]
Is President Obama a socialist?
July 11, 2010Now it is common among some groups on the Right to label our president a socialist. Is this only name calling, or is there some truth in the designation? Michael Walzer in an article, “Which Socialism” in this summer’s Dissent Magazine says that “today’s” socialism (or if you prefer, social democracy) combines three features, each [...]
We are all socialists now
July 5, 2010According to Guy Sorman, in a recent piece in the City Journal, the member states of the European Union at the time of the Union’s creation held fast to free market principles, believing then that responsible governance by their members should be in accordance with these principles. Perhaps this was true at the time of [...]
“Will the sense of obligation meet the sense of entitlement?
April 27, 2010Our country is confronting a geometric rise in the growth of entitlements, more and more of which more and more people consider it the role of government to provide, even if the government has to go deeper and deeper into debt to do so. The very latest of the entitlements, health insurance for all, or [...]
This Land is your Land, this Land is my Land…
April 19, 2010There are things that are happening in our country. There are trends not of our own making, or rather not the result of our own planning. Should we be concerned? Should we be doing something to reverse those trends that seem to be a threat to our liberal democracy? What about this one: Should we [...]
“It is not good for man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species.” John Stuart Mill
October 22, 2009The year when he wrote this, some 161 years ago, was 1848, in Europe a year of revolutions. Then, as now, technological change was revolutionizing the life of the working classes. From Wikipedia: “A popular press extended political awareness, and new values and ideas such as popular liberalism, nationalism and socialism began to spring up. [...]
Truths about Healthcare and Education
October 13, 2009Today two op ed writers, Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal and William Easterly in the Financial Times, express fundamental truths, the one about education and the other about health care, truths not shared or even recognized by our politicians, but that if they ever were could become powerful driving forces behind significant education [...]
Does Peace Have a Chance and Fayyadism
August 8, 2009Encountered a number of ideas in my online reading today, some of them new, and some of them good, all interesting. Did I grow in understanding? Maybe. A piece in Slate by John Horgan asks, “Does Peace Have a Chance?” And the answer is yes, at least more of a chance that ever before. The [...]
The Importance of Ownership
July 30, 2009Robert Fisk, the Middle East correspondent of the Independent newspaper, is not known for his support of the United States, and in particular the United States of the eight years of George Bush’s presidency. There was little, if anything that Bush did in the Middle East that didn’t arouse the scorn and often the anger [...]
