Affirmative Action and Philosophy vs. Reality

by Tod Kelly September 27, 2011

In a post I did on religion a while back, I talked about the various reasons I tend to distrust using Philosophy as a tool to solve disagreements about public policy. While I appreciate the thinking skills it teaches when practiced in an academic setting, I described my problems using it to tackle day-to-day issues [...]

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Neo-Liberalism Again

by E.D. Kain September 27, 2011

Henry Farrell summarizes neoliberalism as defined by Colin Crouch in The Strange Non-death of Neo-liberalism: Crouch depicts classical liberalism and social democracy as mirror images of each other. Both are intensely suspicious of the intermediate zone where politics and markets influence each other, classical liberals because they fear that politics will distort markets, social democrats [...]

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California Legislature Proposes Racial Discrimination in University Admissions Policy

by Tim Kowal September 27, 2011

Via Pacific Legal Foundation, the California Legislature recently passed a bill, SB 185, that would require the state’s public universities to discriminate on the basis of race and gender in their admissions policies.  Here’s the relevant text of SB 185: This bill would authorize the University of California and the California State University to consider [...]

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Mothers are all the same in A Song of Ice and Fire

by Daniel September 26, 2011

Does anybody else find the entire Iron Islands storyline tiresome and disconnected? I do. I just can’t find myself at all interested by Euron Crow’s Eye or Victarion or Asha. I also sort of get the sense that Martin knows these chapters are slow so every once in a while he’ll add a little sexual [...]

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Jesus Saves… $75 Dollars a Day Plus Jail Time

by Tod Kelly September 26, 2011

Since I first started lurking here, the issues of what to do with jails has been an ongoing issue. One of the few areas that people here seem to agree on by and large is that the corrections system in this country is to some degree broken and overly expansive. Some of us argue from [...]

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Celebrating Cheese Week

by Ryan Bonneville September 26, 2011

(Forgive me for lack of blogging recently. Overtaken by events and all that.) What a happy coincidence. For me, preparing my weak flesh for the inaugural Big Ten showdown for Nebraska (their opponent: Wisconsin) meant indulging in a week of cheese, corn, and so, so much beer. Turns out, it is also British Cheese Week. [...]

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Are white, anti-Obama liberals motivated by racism?

by Shawn Gude September 25, 2011

That’s Melissa Harris-Perry’s tendentious contention in her latest Nation column. The crux of her argument: The 2012 election may be a test of another form of electoral racism: the tendency of white liberals to hold African-American leaders to a higher standard than their white counterparts. If old-fashioned electoral racism is the absolute unwillingness to vote [...]

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Those Poor Bastards…

by Tod Kelly September 25, 2011

Recent posts by Erik and their subsequent commentary have gotten me thinking about the poor and needy in this country. The more I see how we approach this topic as a society, the more I think we are in need of a different discussion. I’m going to skip to the “Hey-Bruce-Willis-Is-A-Dead-Guy-Too!” surprise ending and admit [...]

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Friday Night Jukebox: Never Stop

by Daniel September 23, 2011

Everytime someone asks me to recommend a new band I rave and rave about The Bad Plus. They’re alternative jazz, I say, but not like you expect. They’re good and not just to jazz lovers. Lately I’ve been listening to “Never Stop” off of their album of the same name: Nothing I write can completely [...]

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Open Thread: Weekend Reading Edition

by E.D. Kain September 23, 2011

This seemed fitting somehow. (via) What is everyone doing to expand their minds this weekend?

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Neoliberalism and the Human Economy

by E.D. Kain September 23, 2011

What is Neoliberalism? I’ve been pouring through some posts written during the recent neoliberalism debate and it’s struck me that nobody actually agrees on what constitutes a neoliberal. For a long time I’ve thought of neoliberalism as basically liberals who like markets, but this is far too imprecise. Corey Robin takes an even broader approach, [...]

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Don Draper Studies II: Mad Men as Western

by J.L. Wall September 23, 2011

(This post contains spoilers for various seasons of Mad Men.  Read at your own risk, but, I mean, it’s on DVD already, so go ahead and help out the Postal Service and that artist formerly known as Netflix.) Forget the Madison Avenue setting, the dapper suits, the blue-blooded heirs, and the Long Island suburbs.  Mad [...]

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Going Valjean

by Christopher Carr September 23, 2011

Balloon Juice defines “going Galt” as: Withdrawing one’s unique brilliance from the economy in protest of tax rates which are actually abnormally low for the post-war era. Discussed and encouraged by bloggers such as Dr. Helen and Meghan McArdle, but never actually preformed, because even they can tell it would be a fucking moronic thing [...]

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Comment Rescue: Dealth Penalty Contrasts

by Jaybird September 22, 2011

This comment was written by our very own Chris in the Troy Davis and the American Justice System thread: Yesterday, two men were murdered by the state, one in Georgia and one in Texas. They were both convicted of murder, but their similarities end there: one was black, the other was a white supremacist; one [...]

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Troy Davis and the American justice system

by Shawn Gude September 21, 2011

I feel someone at the League should at least acknowledge—and inveigh against—the horrendous tragedy that occurred tonight. We’re in a sad, sad state as a country when Dick Cheney, a war criminal, can publish his memoir, make millions, and joke around with obsequious reporters while Troy Davis is mercilessly injected with lethal poison. This is [...]

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The Value of Political Concepts

by Jason Kuznicki September 20, 2011

My former colleague Will Wilkinson writes: It seems to me that most of our high-level political concepts like “freedom” or “equality” are tailored and tweaked to justify the kind of political regime we already tend to favor. If you are offended by taxation, you’ll settle on a conception of liberty according to which taxation is [...]

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Liberty, Anarchy and the Pragmatist’s Dilemma

by E.D. Kain September 19, 2011

I will be blogging Gary Chartier’s Conscience of an Anarchist over the next couple of weeks at Forbes, but before we set out, I want to touch on a handful of pieces I’ve read recently which reflect much of my own thinking on anarchy and libertarianism. I find that I struggle always with the idealistic [...]

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That Fine Line Between Correlation and Coincidence

by J.L. Wall September 19, 2011

Via Andrew, a new Way-Too-Soon general election snapshot: Obama now leads Texas Governor Rick Perry, the frontrunner in the GOP contest, 46% to 39%. Perry’s chief rival for the nomination, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney , holds a narrow 43% to 40% lead over the president. I also want to put forth this tidbit, from another write-up of [...]

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The Governmental Regulation vs. Litigation Spectrum

by Tod Kelly September 19, 2011

There’s a pretty great ongoing conversation going on below stemming from a comment-turned-post by Jaybird on the unintended costs of governmental regulations. As always, my thoughts on the subject of governmental regulation don’t lean toward “Yay Government Oversight!” or “Boo Government Oversight!” but rather where do we agree that it is needed, and to what [...]

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Your Class Warfare Song of the Day

by Alex Knapp September 19, 2011

There’s been a class war going on since the 1980s. It’s just that the side being attacked has finally decided to start defending itself. We’ll see if that actually works in America. “But don’t forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich, than face the reality of being poor.”

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My Last Thoughts on Pro-Life/Pro-Choice; or, Why the Hell Did I Ask That Question, Anyway?

by Tod Kelly September 18, 2011

Earlier this week I posted a hypothetical choice for people on both sides of the abortion issue. The question essentially asked the reader, given the choice between a world where this debate had potential compromise or a world where the issue was unyieldingly contentious, which would you choose to live in and why? There were [...]

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Unintended Consequences Sunday Sidebar Comment Request Open Thread

by Jaybird September 18, 2011

I wrote a comment in Fellow Gentleman Christopher Carr’s sidebar post and he asked me to post it to the main page and then I read that comment and then I posted this. My comment reads: For the record, though, I don’t think that lowering the minimum wage would help in this present crisis. There [...]

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What will the myths be in A Song of Ice and Fire?

by Daniel September 17, 2011

By the end of A Storm of Swords and the beginning of A Feast for Crows (which I just recently began rereading. I’m almost at A Dance!) Jaime’s transformation is roughly complete and Sansa has begun the next phase of becoming a major player of the game of thrones. (Warning, spoilers up to the beginning [...]

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Doctor Sardonicus in the Urinal

by Rufus F. September 16, 2011

With the annual onset of seasonal depression my curmudgeon persona returns and promptly begins griping about every stupid fishing thing around me. Some of you might wonder how much that persona, who we can call “Doctor Sardonicus”, differs from my regularly mordant personality. Well, let’s recall it was last winter that I gibed the local [...]

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A Poem for Friday

by E.D. Kain September 16, 2011

“Tree” by E.D. Kain I can feel it like some dragging tide or a slope, the green mood sliding back, slipping toward that thick black cancer, that sense of decay. Fallen autumn leaves on a cold summer day. Beneath my two feet, the colors seep down into the wet dirt. The pavement cracks, weeds pushing [...]

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Friday Afternoon Jukebox

by Tod Kelly September 16, 2011

I don’t know how things are in the rest of the world, but in my corner it looks to be sunny and beautiful but not hot; what’s more, we’re going into a weekend that I really, really need.  My oh my, life she is good. If Rufus can buck trend and bring out the blues, [...]

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In Which The Parties Are Remarkably Consistent

by Ryan Bonneville September 15, 2011

So there’s this new Republican plan in Pennsylvania under which the state would assign its electoral votes to presidential candidates based on which congressional district is won by each (which, of course, is what Maine and Nebraska already do). The net effect of this plan, of course, would be to increase the average number of [...]

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Comment Rescue: True Rejections

by Jason Kuznicki September 15, 2011

A True Rejection is a scenario or a set of facts that — if it were true — would cause you to revise a conclusion that you have expressed. New commenter OhB1Knewbie understands: THIS IS A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT ! The purpose is not to win the argument. The purpose is to attempt a bit of [...]

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Bachmann, Perry and HPV

by Russell Saunders September 15, 2011

Let me begin by dispensing with the easiest parts first. Michele Bachmann is an idiot. “I’m offended for all the little girls and parents that didn’t have a choice,” [Bachmann] said. (Actually, any parent can opt out on a child’s behalf.) She said that girls who were harmed by the vaccine don’t get “a mulligan.” [...]

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Political Theodicy

by Jaybird September 15, 2011

About five years back, Matt Yglesias came up with a great little analogy called “The Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics“. It’s a pretty scathing criticism of the (primarily “neocon”) attitude that pretty much any geopolitical goal is achievable, provided we have enough Will. We could have won in Vietnam, if only we had enough will. We could [...]

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A Question for both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Supporters

by Tod Kelly September 14, 2011

I’d like to ask a question of both those that are Pro-Life and those that are Pro-Choice. To be more precise, I have a question and then one of two follow up questions. These are not intended to be “gotcha” questions.  Though some commenters may disagree, I would like us all to assume anyway that [...]

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How to Stop Pennsylvania from Mattering

by Guest Authors September 14, 2011

by E.C. Gach I wrote recently about the difficulties associated with our anachronistic political institutions. The Constitution, and the division of powers between states and the federal government it lays out, while created by insightful and wise statesmen, is ultimately still the product of a special time and place, far removed from the nation’s present [...]

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On Sports, Culture, and the Desire for Meaningful Change

by Tod Kelly September 14, 2011

(above photo: the Cincinnati Bengals doing the Ickey Shuffle. That’s right. I said the Ickey Shuffle. It was a thing.) For a while now, I’ve been trying to sort out why I think that our political system works in the broken-feeling way that it does. After all, it’s a system dominated by highly intelligent, successful [...]

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Book Review: The Magician King

by E.D. Kain September 14, 2011

Lev Grossman’s The Magicians posed the question “What if your childhood fantasy turned out to be real?” Quentin Coldwater had always been obsessed with magic, and particularly with Fillory, a Narnia-like land from a series of Narnia-like kids books. Well, it turned out that a world full of magic is a lot less romantic than [...]

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Gripes

by Ryan Bonneville September 13, 2011

I’m not feeling super-motivated to write about politics these days – the two debates and the job speech over the last couple weeks have left me too exhausted to even bother – so instead I’m going to channel all of that disappointment into talking about things I hate. This is not an interesting post, but [...]

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Should Microsoft Let This Man Die?

by Jason Kuznicki September 13, 2011

Here’s a healthy man of thirty. He’s an architect. He’s never worked for Microsoft. He decides not to get health insurance. Then — against all odds — he gets a rare form of cancer. It’s terminal if he doesn’t get care. Should Microsoft let this man die? My hope for this question is that it [...]

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The Future of Affirmative Action

by Guest Authors September 13, 2011

~by Aaron There is an ongoing war in Michigan on the status of affirmative action in higher education, and a new chapter of this conflict opened on July 1: the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision in support of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (or Proposal 2). The MCRI essentially banned [...]

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Thinking in Song

by J.L. Wall September 13, 2011

At FPR, Gregory Butler has written a nice discussion of Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising.  This album has been one to which I’ve returned with time, and my opinion of it has grown, slowly but steadily — it may well be the Boss’ best.  The reason for this is not that it successfully eulogizes September 11, [...]

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I didn’t watch the Tea Party debate

by E.D. Kain September 13, 2011

But Aaron Carroll did. He writes: Let’s start here with the moment I screamed at the TV. I’m sorry, but the audience cheering the idea of letting a thirty-year old who got sick without insurance die is appalling. You can dislike the moral hazard, you can bemoan the fact that people don’t take enough personal [...]

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The Need for Speed and the Value of Human Life

by Tod Kelly September 12, 2011

Last week following the Republican debate, Erik and many others decried the way Perry’s supporters yeehaw-ed Texas executions. This lead to a discussion by people on both sides of the aisle as to who it was that valued human life more: Pro-Life (in terms of the abortion debate) advocates, or Anti-Death Penalty advocates. (Because in [...]

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Beyond Capitalism

by E.D. Kain September 12, 2011

Umair Haque has an interesting post up at the Harvard Business Review asking whether Marx was in fact correct about capitalism – not about communism mind you, but about capitalism. Marx, after all, did not simply prescribe a solution, he also put forth a critique of capitalism that Haque thinks might be more applicable to [...]

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For the families

by Patrick Cahalan September 12, 2011

In July of 2001, I was in New York working on decommissioning a regional office.  Shutting down the phone switch, helping pack up the expensive network gear, bemoaning the fact that the UPS at this facility would never be removed, things like that. Like anyone else who takes their first trip to New York City [...]

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A Song for 9/11

by E.D. Kain September 11, 2011

Elvis Perkins (again). This time While You Were Sleeping off of Ash Wednesday.

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A Work In Progress

by Burt Likko September 11, 2011

The English word “republic” is taken from the Latin phrase “res publica,” a concept which embraced the government, the culture, the community, and the aggregate sum of public acts of citizens. After the meeting in which the Framing of the original Constitution took place, Benjamin Franklin is quoted as answering a woman’s question of “What [...]

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On the Changing of Narratives

by Jaybird September 11, 2011

My recollections of what I was doing on 9/11 are the recollections of someone in Colorado who was working evenings. Not terribly interesting. There were, however, two things that caught my interest at the time and still stick out. These are two things that had one very distinct narrative when they started and 9/11 changed the [...]

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