Just when Obama’s economic rhetoric is giving me hives, I see something like this and get, if not a thrill running up my leg, a little more at ease: But you know, the truth is that my education was a pretty standard, liberal arts education. So I was exposed to thinkers on the left. At […]

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Well, this is a Republican platform I could support. Which I’ll take as prima facie evidence that its chances of being adopted are nil.

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Well, this is obviously incredibly flattering: Among the many dark tidings for American conservatism, there is one genuine bright spot. Over the past five years, a group of young and unpredictable rightward-leaning writers has emerged on the scene. These writers came of age as official conservatism slipped into decrepitude. Most of them were dismayed by […]

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Thoreau’s post on the potential pitfalls of advertising our presence to aliens who may be unfriendly reminds me of Robert Nozick’s morbidly delightful short story RSVP. It’s behind the subscription wall at Commentary, but can also be found in the collection Socratic Puzzles.

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Some libertarians out there think Larry Lessig, whatever his faults, might have a few ideas deserving of serious consideration. And that seems to have sent at least one supporter of strong IP hurtling over the edge. Over at Ars Technica, I take up the question: Is the creative commons really a Soviet gulag? Addendum: I […]

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Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s notion of “Libertarian Paternalism” has already occasioned plenty of blogospheric debate, but their recent LA Times op-ed has reopened the floodgates. Jonah Goldberg has a crop of posts, and Jim Manzi and Will Wilkinson also take shots. I’ve been at least somewhat more open to the idea than some of […]

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Randy Barnett writes at Cato Unbound: In his reply to my post, Tony repeats a common mischaracterization of Nozick’s argument. In Anarchy, State and Utopia, Nozick made no prediction about the emergence of a dominant protection agency. Nor did he describe a mechanism for that emergence. Rather, his argument was that a dominant protection agency […]

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This Will Wilkinson post may be the best thing I’ve read. Ever. I was going to excerpt it, but I’d just end up quoting the whole thing. Go. Read.

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While I have some quibbles with the rest of this post, this is actually a very strong point: One point of dispute, though, is that to me the idea of state committed to neutral and effective administration of justice around laissez faire lines seems like an illusion. The alternative to reasonably effective democratic institutions and […]

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So, on top of his apparent association with racists, Ron Paul surely has many weird and wrong views. But you know what’s depressing? When someone gets column space at a major publication not to expose why those views are wrong with any kind of rigor, but to waste readers’ time with a vacuous, folksy “don’t […]

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