I didn’t want to write about this case because I felt it was an all too typically contrived media event, and to a large extent it was just that. But in another sense it grew into something else, and the something else, based on media bias in the coverage and professional race hustling in […]
Archives for 2013
Detroit is a Very Big Deal
The bankruptcy of Detroit should be watched very closely, not simply because of its immediate financial impact on the country and the pain of its citizens, which are important, nor even because it will be the model for probably many more such reorganizations to come, but because it will be a major turning point for […]
Texas Legislative Wrap Up
In the May issue, I noted that it was crunch time for school accountability in Texas, as the Texas Legislature wound down to final decisions on several bills, most significantly one that would drastically reduce the standard for high school graduation as measured by standardized high school end of course assessments. Unfortunately, this bill passed […]
The Middle Class Revolution
Francis Fukuyama, author most prominently of the provocative 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has written an intriguing essay in The Wall Street Journal in which he argues that today’s political turmoil all over the world–Brazil, Egypt, Turkey, the Arab Spring, China, and elsewhere–has a common theme: the failure of governments […]
The SCOTUS Rules
The Supreme Court got a few big things right in its current term, but also added further confusion in a couple of places. Here are some thoughts on a few of the most prominent cases. With the decision in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management, the Court again validated the constitutional takings clause in […]
The Ultimate Tyranny II
Speaking at the commencement ceremony at Ohio State University before the IRS scandal broke in May, President Obama cautioned the graduates to reject the voices “that warn that tyranny is always just around the corner”, that “suggest that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we […]
Recent Books
I have long been captivated by the ongoing debates around Darwinian evolution, and two books I read this spring have validated some of my previously held views as well as opened new areas of thought for me. Mind and Cosmos, by Thomas Nagel, is a relatively brief book that explores the deficiencies in the […]
From the Bush Doctrine to What?
I often said during the George W. Bush administration that whoever succeeded him would be hard pressed to find a better strategy for the defeat of radical Muslim jihadism than the Bush Doctrine. And, in fact, President Obama has used significant elements of it to great advantage during his term, without directly crediting its […]
Has Democracy Had Its Day?
Our purpose is to cultivate in the largest possible number of our future citizens an appreciation of both the responsibilities and the benefits which come to them because they are American and they are free.—Harvard University President James Bryant Conant in the preface to the 1945 report, General Education in a Free Society. Concerns […]
The Ultimate Tyranny
The power to tax involves the power to destroy.—Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, McCullough vs. Maryland, 1819. In the act of appropriating taxes there is perhaps no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice.—James Madison, Federalist No. 10 Of […]