thoughts in and out of season
One great gift we’ve received from the Blair government is a series of sure-fire cures for Anglophilic snobbishness. Did you know, for example, that anti-Christian children’s writer Philip Pullman just got a CBE, and the chairman of the Gay Police Association got an MBE for helping “modernize attitudes” within the force?
Various eminent rugby … More ...
Merry Christmas!
From Turnabout
Computer simulations of artificial societies are leading to social science that seems illuminating, and conceivably might even be useful at some point. At least that’s what an account by Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic Monthly suggests. Some interesting results:
Ba’athism is said to be an Arab form of Naziism. A point in favor of that interpretation is that Saddam’s regime, like the Nazis, seems to have been heavily involved in the occult. If you make power your God, and say it trumps truth, then it seems there’s no limit on what imaginary … More ...
Black parents are upset that a white principal spelled out the N-word as an example of something that shouldn’t be used, while congressmen are upset that the FTC now allows the F-word to be used as an expletive.
These issues are impossible to decide in a way people agree makes sense. Since language is part … More ...
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is upset because Kwanzaa and Hanukkah cards put out by major companies are ever-so-respectful, while Christmas cards are tasteless, irreligious, and downright offensive. The Catholic League thinks that demonstrates bigotry, to which (they say) multiculturalism is congenitally related. The analysis isn’t wrong, exactly, but it’s less-than-illuminating. … More ...
In extreme cases, reason does sometimes creep in: fewer than half the people in the European Union’s member states now support the EU project. Support has dropped below 50% even in France, where centralization is generally considered a requirement of logic. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Normally, when the … More ...
About 45,000 Brazilians are murdered each year, perhaps 85% by unregistered firearms and the rest mostly by knives, blows, strangling, poison and whatnot. Government is by nature a monopoly, so in a sense it is not surprising that the failure of government to carry out its basic responsibility to provide for public safety has led … More ...
A correspondent sent me a lengthy set of comments on my Conservatism FAQ. Some of them seemed like they might be of general interest, so here’s my summary with responses:
… More ...Objection: “Tradition” is vague. Also, it seems to mean “do what’s already being done.” How can it act as a guide?
Response: “Tradition” is
My comments (here) on a recent story in the New York Times led someone with a job in the media to protest against right-wing conspiracy theories about his profession. My (somewhat edited) response:
… More ...I have no doubt that from inside the media the notion of a “liberal media conspiracy” seems rather silly. What