Born May 8, 1899, F. A. Hayek made landmark contributions to more subjects than most social scientists are even conversant in: economic theory, social-science methodology, political and legal theory, intellectual history—he had something valuable to say about all of these and more. Because so many great pieces about Hayek’s life and work have been...
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Jesse Walker has an intriguing blog post about data concerning illegal immigration. The most fascinating part to me discusses an analysis concluding that illegal alien crackdowns and border fencing has actually increased the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. By making it more risky for undocumented migrants to come in, the border walls have...
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The brazenness with which mainstream “Progressives” (or “Modernists”) are now declaring not only their abandonment but outright hostility to the concept of rights is extremely troubling. I infer it signals their belief that they now have complete control of the public square and every thinking person now “knows” that such ideas are outdated and...
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Two years ago, members of the Michigan “Hutaree” militia were jailed and charged with conspiracy to violently overthrow the government. As is the case in most of these incidents, the feds had planted an informant among the group. The arrests made a splash in the news, especially among progressive journalists who, beginning at the...
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Boy, I miss the days when the future depicted in Terminator appeared ridiculously dystopian. The Washington Times reports: The legislation would order the FAA, before the end of the year, to expedite the process through which it authorizes the use of drones by federal, state and local police and other agencies. The FAA currently issues certificates, which...
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The headline of this Washington Post article summarizes the story pretty well: “Some legislators send millions to groups connected to their relatives.” Relatives in the story are legislators’ spouses and children. I recently blogged about the insider trading by members of Congress that would send ordinary citizens to jail. That story was uncovered in...
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Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in attempting to highlight an emphasis on the middle class in his platform, said a politically foolish thing. “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” he said. “We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it.” In an apparent effort to soften the harshness of...
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Did you know 2012 is the centenary of Charles Dickens’s birth? Dickens is often lumped with Carlyle, Shaw, Ruskin, etc. as a Romantic, Victorian, literary anti-capitalist. (Carlyle indeed disliked capitalism, but not for the usual reasons.) But Dickens, as I originally learned from Paul Cantor, was a wildly successful capitalist and entrepreneur, a driving force behind the...
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Here is some reading to celebrate Martin Luther King Day: Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. I confess up front I have not read the book. I’ve just read some things about it. Here is a short write-up from the author’s interview on NPR. The book...
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We live in a secularized world of nation states in which traditional religion, especially Christianity, is unwelcome. Rooted in the “Enlightenment,” this view supports a secularized and authoritarian public square enforced by government and that progress requires forcing religion ever backward into remote corners of society. In short, America has become a secular theocracy...
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