Doubts about Ed Phelps’ Cowboy Capitalism

by Matthew Schmitz April 30, 2010

Jay Richards at the AEI blog is doing a series of posts about Ed Phelps’ old First Things essay about the morality of capitalism. I’m broadly supportive of Phelps’ project, but I think Richards’ reading is rather too sympathetic. The first thing that confused me about Phelps’ piece was his eccentric take on St. Augustine’s most famous phrase: I personally hold that the classical spirit of challenge and self-discovery is a fundamental human trait. By showing how the risk-taking activity ...

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Nicholas Capaldi and the Red Tories (because when we talk about Blond we do so in triplicate)

by Erik Kain April 30, 2010

I’ve given Phillip Blond another chance at convincing me of his vision but alas I find his final product rather incoherent at the end of the day. Writing in The American Conservative, Nicholas Capaldi touches on a number of the reasons why Blond’s vision is less than compelling. Blond, writes Capaldi, describes “what a new economy should accomplish but not how.” This is exactly right, I think. Capaldi’s critique of Blond’s Red Toryism – and the vision of anti-liberalism in ...

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Plato, “Gorgias” & ‘epistemic closure’

by Rufus F. April 29, 2010

In Gorgias, Plato expands on many of the themes of the Republic while posing the implicit question: Why do democracies fail? In particular, why did Athenian democracy fail? In doing so, he makes a distinction between the Orator and the True Politician that brought to my mind the Levin/Manzi debate raging in the blogosphere. Okay, now bear with me here! The dialogue begins with Socrates trying to get the orator Gorgias to explain what his ‘art’ consists of. The short ...

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(Political) Myths Doesn’t Equal Unreal

by Chris Dierkes April 29, 2010

Br. Jamelle goes on the attack against radical centrism of the Thomas Friedman variety. He writes: The term “radical centrism” is absolutely incoherent. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines radical as “relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.” Which, incidentally, is the precise opposite of “centrism.” For centrists, public policy is only “good” when it offers a concrete benefits to existing stakeholders and entrenched interests. By and large, centrism is an ideology of the status quo, ...

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Girls and boys and Weezer.

by William Brafford April 29, 2010

Last weekend I was visiting some friends in a Major American City, and we were out back of their place swapping stories, and someone brought out a guitar. Once again, I found that “El Scorcho” and “The Sweater Song” are the singalong songs for twenty-somethings who grew up in the suburbs. What else could come close? These songs are stuck in our heads, and evidently we’re still processing them. OK, so I know I’m courting disaster by linking to Sady ...

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The Deep Divide

by Dave April 28, 2010

Responding to the post by Br. Chris, I think Matt Taibbi has a point.  Tea Partiers and other small government types were opposed to the bailout and would like to see an end to crony capitalism and the marriage between big business and big government.  In theory, there is nothing wrong with this.  However, the message, as demonstrated by people like Sarah Palin, is ass backwards.  The difference between the way that Matt Taibbi and I look at this is that he thinks she has a pair of iron church bells ...

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Palibbinism: Or The Financial Servile State

by Chris Dierkes April 28, 2010

Matt Taibi writes: The Republicans, meanwhile, are in the difficult position of trying to sell Wall Street’s position on the Regulatory Reform bill to their base. That might not sound so very difficult, given that the Tea Partiers in particular continue to oppose further government regulation and have used the idea that Barack Obama’s government is “taking over the banking sector” as a rallying cry. But Wall Street isn’t exactly popular with the Tea Party, either, so selling their side ...

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Millman’s Taxonomy ctd.

by Erik Kain April 28, 2010

William summarizes Millman’s taxonomy (and doesn’t that roll off the tongue? You almost want to capitalize ‘taxonomy’: Millman’s Taxonomy – as if it were some well established thing…) thusly: liberal vs. conservative (attitudes toward the individual and authority) left vs. right (attitudes toward social/economic winners and losers) progressive vs. reactionary (attitude toward past and future) There is something missing from this, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I suppose I’m having trouble figuring out exactly how to ...

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The Establishment, Still Doing Its Thing

by David Schaengold April 27, 2010

While the difference between Comedy Central’s treatment of Muhammad and every other religious figure is certainly striking, it’s worth noting that Ross Douthat’s recent column on the subject makes a wildly false claim that often manages to pass for conventional wisdom. He writes: Our culture has few taboos that can’t be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place. All societies and cultures, I imagine, both proscribe and prescribe, and ours is not ...

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Free Speech and Killing Kittens

by Will April 27, 2010

Here’s a provocative post from Stanley Fish: To anyone who has been following First Amendment jurisprudence in the past 40 or 50 years, the recent Supreme Court decision (United States v. Stevens, April 20) striking down a statute criminalizing the production and sale of videos depicting animal cruelty in a manner intended to satisfy a particular “sexual fetish” will come as no surprise. The proverbial ordinary citizen, however, may be surprised to learn that, according to Chief Justice John Roberts’ ...

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Volcker and Trans-national Regulation

by Chris Dierkes April 26, 2010

All those mind-boggling financial products that nobody understood were no help to the U.S. economy, and led it to the sorry state from which it is now attempting to recover.  So says Paul Volcker, chairman of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, at the Journal’s Future of Finance Initiative conference in London recently, according to a report in MarketWatch. There is not a “shred of evidence” that innovation provided any benefit, said ...

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Bryan Caplan: An Adopted Child is Second-Best

by Jason Kuznicki April 26, 2010

The last thing I want is to give more free publicity to a book that frankly doesn’t look all that promising. But when you condescend to me, and when you bring my daughter into it, well, that’s when I have to say — free publicity be damned, I’m gonna rant. Bryan Caplan writes: I think that adoption is a noble, generous act, and admire those who do it. But I personally don’t want to adopt. On raising a biological child ...

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Euripides, “The Bacchae”

by Rufus F. April 26, 2010

It’s a bit of a cliche to suggest that, if you want to understand the 60s, the play to see isn’t Hair; it’s the Bacchae. A depiction of orgiastic release that tips over, as if naturally, into horrific violence, the Bacchae also shows the failings of secular powers that have grown out of touch and dismiss the people’s need to have gods and something to worship, instead of simply to obey. Other stories come to mind; like Pontius Pilate, Pentheus ...

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A Couple of Thoughts on the Ratings Agencies…

by Dave April 23, 2010

While I wait to catch the train out of NYC for the weekend, I thought I’d get my post count up by putting an answer to a question in my previous post into a separate discussion of its own since it involves the ratings agencies, a subject that can (and has) taken on a life of its own separate to my last post. North asks: And that said I’d also ask more out of curiosity; my understanding is that currently ...

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South Park and censorship

by Erik Kain April 23, 2010

I don’t have a lot to say about Comedy Central’s decision to apparently censor the 201st episode of South Park in its entirety. It is a cowardly, stupid and unnecessary move – one of the worst responses to intimidation I’ve seen from a major media outlet in recent years. There was very little intimidation to speak of, in fact, which only goes to show how deeply ingrained the fear really is among members of the media, or at least among ...

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Clueless…

by Dave April 22, 2010

Not that I am surprised to see editorial garbage floating around over at Investor’s Business Daily (I read it so you don’t have to), but Rep. John Boehner’s attempt to put Republicans on the side of taxpayers in the fight for financial reform is one of the worst I have seen in a while.   That his version of events is so conflicted with the real world makes his ignorance even more painful to read.  I’ll comment: President Obama talks a ...

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Folkways and knowledge

by Erik Kain April 22, 2010

I was a little disappointed to see that the conversation on my ‘folkways’ post went the direction it did. I was hoping some strong advocates of science would recognize where science has erred, and where the wisdom of the past could have helped avoid those mistakes. Instead that post was generally met with hostility. I must be yearning for the ‘good ol’ days’ – the mythic harmonious past. I must be attacking science or modernity or whatever. That’s not my ...

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In Which Bryan Caplan Doesn’t Understand Evolution, Either

by Jason Kuznicki April 22, 2010

I’m sorry, Bryan. You’ve done some great work in the past, but this just hasn’t been your week: I confess that I take anti-cloning arguments personally. Not only do they insult the identical twin sons I already have; they insult a son I hope I live to meet. Yes, I wish to clone myself and raise the baby as my son. Seriously. I want to experience the sublime bond I’m sure we’d share. I’m confident that he’d be delighted, too, ...

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I know Mark Levin, and you sir are no Mark Levin

by Erik Kain April 21, 2010

I love debate, as all of you here know, but when someone picks on Mark Levin – the most gentlemanly scholar and scholarly gentleman I have ever known, a veritable light in a sea of darkness, the very man whose conservative courage has liberals running for the coasts and whose work has inspired countless millions to the conservative cause – whose calm soothing radio voice has lulled billions of wailing infants to sleep while driving in the car with their ...

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No epistemic closure here!

by Will April 21, 2010

One response to the debate over conservatism and “epistemic closure” has been to argue that, well, conservatism is ailed by no such disease. I highlighted Jim Manzi’s excellent takedown of Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny earlier, but the reactions to his post at The Corner really have to be read to be believed: There is  heart and soul and years of experience in his book — and a heck of a lot more than cut-and-paste Google searching (!). He’s heard ...

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“We are out of the eradication business”

by Will April 21, 2010

Jason’s 4/20 cri de coeur is well taken, but here’s a bit of hopeful news on the drug war front from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Danger Room: I’m also mystified to our approach to drug policy over there [Afghanistan - Will edit]. Do we have a single approach to narcotics there? Mullen: The overall strategy is to replace the poppies with crops that will provide a standard of living for the farmers. I was there in ...

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