Statues and Limitations

Aug 18, 2017 with 5 Comments

“Should they take down the Jefferson Memorial?” That is what PBS’s Charlie Rose asked Al Sharpton. Now, the “Reverend” is not my go-to source for political insight, but his answer* caught my attention. “I think that people need to understand that, when people that were enslaved and robbed of even

Loco Micro Repression

Aug 16, 2017 with 1 Comment

Close but no cakewalk prize. Modern social justice advocates sometimes come up with legitimate complaints . . . only to wander off terra firma and into cloud-cuckoo land. “Microaggressions” is one of these airy wanderings, and Katherine Timpf has spotted another in the ever-growing catalog of social justice beefs: The

How to Ruin a Thoroughfare

Aug 15, 2017 with 2 Comments

Cities require some planning. But the further beyond a certain minimum, the greater the ease with which a central planning authority can be captured — by zealots with more stars in their eyes than brains in their heads. Portland, Oregon, is a case in point. Students from Portland State University

Google Has the Memo

Aug 9, 2017 with 8 Comments

A Google employee, James Damore, internally distributed a memo, reprinted by Gizmodo* to widespread (if inch-deep) horror. The memo controversially takes apart Google’s efforts to increase its number of female employees. Per the memo, it is surely unjust to discriminate against members of some groups in the cause of opposing

Decriminalizing Balloon Release

Aug 7, 2017 with 3 Comments

I’m sure I disagree with most of the policies California Governor Jerry Brown seeks to propose and impose. But let’s give credit where credit is due. He’s right that people should not be treated like criminals when in a burst of celebratory excess they commit the sin of unleashing helium

ObamaCare’s Casualties

Jul 31, 2017 with 4 Comments

We all know the truth: Partisan “warfare” yields the usual war casualty, truth itself. Now, because of the increasing weight of federal government presence in healthcare markets, partisan untruth incurs medical costs. Take the goofy Republican plan(s) to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare — pushed with so many half-truths and downright

The Minimal Use of a Finger

Jul 28, 2017 with 1 Comment

Drivers in Washington State have a new law to . . . swerve from? “New distracted driving law starts Sunday, July 23,” the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) tweeted last week. “The law forbids,” Washingtonians were told,  “virtually all use of handheld gadgets such as phones, tablets, laptop computers

Big Libertarian Questions

Jul 26, 2017 with 5 Comments

“This raises some very big libertarian questions,” said Nigel Farage yesterday. About what? The “rights of parents against the state.” The outspoken Brexit supporter and former leader of the UK Independence Party was referring to Charlie Gard, the sick, dying 11-month old British baby, whose parents sought to take to

Pardon Him, Mr. President

Jul 24, 2017 with 6 Comments

Presidents tend to issue pardons as their tenures draw to a close. But many victims of our government should be pardoned right now. Until the culpable agencies can be dismantled and/or sundry bad laws repealed, a steady flow of presidential pardons would provide the swiftest justice. An Amish man in

According to Logic

Jul 20, 2017 with 7 Comments

“Polling on every possible option confounds all logic,” or so writes Tiana Lowe about ObamaCare and its repeal, at National Review. “Americans overwhelmingly dislike the individual mandate and prioritize lowering the cost of health care over all other health problems in the country,” Ms. Lowe elaborates, “but a majority of

The Worst Is the Enemy of the Cure

Jul 17, 2017 with 7 Comments

You’ve heard the adage: “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” This can be true in politics, where opposing an ameliorating reform because it is not ideal means, sometimes, getting stuck with unmitigated policy disasters. But there’s a corollary: in politics the worst is likely to emerge . .

Messed Up State

Jul 14, 2017 with 2 Comments

After lamenting Illinois’s fiscal decline into America’s “most messed up” state yesterday, lo and behold, today we find the State of Nevada messed up, too. On marijuana.* Question 2, passed by voters last November, legalized recreational use of what we used to call “weed” by those 21 years of age