thoughts in and out of season
A correspondent raised the issue of the historic identity of the American people, and whether it depended on the exclusion of nonwhites and in particular blacks. He suggested (a bit modishly, I thought) that to the extent concrete ethnicity became less important during the course of our history a sort of constructed pseudo-ethnicity based on … More ...
The uniform view of the cultural Left—which includes everything that counts as mainstream from the standpoint of our bureaucracies of truth—is that nods by Republican leaders toward traditionalist cultural concerns prove that the GOP has been hijacked by fundamentalist wackos. That’s not rhetoric and spin, things really look to them that way. It’s clear … More ...
It’s a mistake for conservatives to stake their case on the appeal to freedom and equality as ultimate principles that is the stuff of political rhetoric today. The appeal is self-defeating, both for conservatives and for anyone intelligently attached to those goals. Their logic is innately unlimited, and the attempt to put them into effect … More ...
Robert Reich was a class ahead of me at college, and at the time he stood out for his knack at picking out positions that were (1) somewhat ahead of the curve, so he could get a leg up as representative of The Next Big Thing, but (2) not too far ahead, so those in … More ...
A couple of online petitions in support of marriage from Alliance for Marriage and Institute for Religion and Democracy.
Keeping abreast of the times:
Liberal media bias is obvious to most people but usually invisible to liberals. The media bias basics assembled by the Media Research Center includes surveys and whatnot and are worth bookmarking in case the point comes up.
Brigitte Bardot and her publisher have been fined 5,000 Euros each for being on the wrong side of current social issues. The immediate basis of the fines was publication of a book some people found objectionable on acccount of its comments on immigrants, in-your-face homosexuals, and whatnot. Judging by excerpts, the book was no less … More ...
The Pew Center has put out an interesting survey of people’s news habits. The survey confirms that:
How are things now and what do we do about them?