First in a series tracking Donald Trump’s presidency and its anti-free-market policies. 1. Pence and Trump explicitly criticize free markets. The New York Times. 2. Direct dealing with an individual company: Carrier will not move. The Fiscal Times. 3. Close up parts of the Internet. “We’re losing a lot of people because of the Internet,” […]
Trump versus Free Markets, late 2016 edition Read More »
My anti-Trump street cred is here. But acting like an immature asshole (to use technical philosophical terminology) is no way to fight back against the man or his policies. Minimal civility is essential for a politics to function peacefully. Some disturbing anecdotes: * Senator Joseph McCarthy was demonized for going after artists and others who
Civility down the toilet: intolerance, anti-Trump style Read More »
The Tale of the Slave By Robert Nozick Robert Nozick was Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is about you. 1. There is a slave completely at the mercy of his brutal master’s whims. He often is
Nozick’s Tale of the Slave [excerpt] Read More »
At the non-partisan PRRI site, results released today about the frequency with which people unfriend over politics. (Scroll down past the surveys about Christmas language.) Striking contrasts by gender and party affiliation: Question: Do the results show a general tendency, or is this December 2016 result narrowly reflective of the previous month’s election in which
Unfriending over politics — survey results Read More »
In 1689 John Locke noted, wryly: the Church … is for the most part more apt to be influenced by the Court than the Court by the Church. How the Church was under the vicissitude of orthodox and Arian emperors is very well known. Or if those things be too remote, our modern English history
When Christians change their ethics to suit the political winds Read More »
Higher education can be a path to a successful life. Yet many successful people did not graduate from college — and many unsuccessful people have impressive degrees. So who should go to college? And who should pay for it? Let’s start by imagining an average student who wants to go to college but has no
Free College Tuition Is a Moral Issue [Good Life series] Read More »
It apparently needs to be repeated repeatedly. Moreover, I am not myself a conservative. I am a liberal in the classical sense or, in the terminology that has become common in the USA, a libertarian in philosophy. And neither were Hayek and Rand. Further: Why do so many conservatives oppose free markets? Source: Milton Friedman,
Milton Friedman was not a conservative Read More »
Grégoire Canlorbe interviews Howard Bloom, who argues that Islamic religion is inherently violent. Gatestone Institute. Mustafa Akyol argues, by contrast, that politics has poisoned Islam. The New York Times. Virginia Murr provides an overview essay on the major theologian of Islamism, Sayyid Qutb. Rockford University. Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues that Islam needs a Reformation. The
Islam politicized — round-up of readings Read More »