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Absolut Absolutism

Our Ivan Kenneally unloads on Obamacare in The Weekly Standard: If one were to take seriously the central premise of Obama’s ersatz science of politics—the distinction between political facts and moral values—the inescapable conclusion is that our president turns out to be a . . . . Continue Reading »

Universality Is Not the Issue, Dude

I hoped I could prove this with a link, but back during the presidential primary race, I told at least one person that, when it came to the health care debate, not universality but comprehensiveness was the issue. You can imagine that a pomocon has an ingrained or inherent dislike for . . . . Continue Reading »

Demystification and Legend

Bryan Wandel has a good blog post here . Short, insightful, and well worth the read. One quibble however: Without accounting for the relationship between these two, Weber’s demystification (and ours) only regards the logical explanation of things, and not the participation and commitment that . . . . Continue Reading »

Scientific Americans

My review of Yuval Levin’s excellent and thought-provoking book, Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy , is up now at First Principles. Yuval’s closing exhortation to conservatives, to write more clearly, probingly, and persuasively about human dignity, is problematic, . . . . Continue Reading »

Newton and Bacon

My rabid pro-Leibniz partisanship notwithstanding, I have to give kudos to Thomas Levenson for his article on the faith of Isaac Newton over at Killing the Buddha. The article closes with a somber reminder: Hence the pathos, the danger that I think Newton himself glimpsed. There is a serious . . . . Continue Reading »

Bioethics and Question-Begging

Well it seems like Ivan can relax , Michael Peroski has just solved all of our problems : Proceeding from ideology-driven inquiry entails starting from an answer: “Research on human embryonic stem cell should be forbidden because embryos are equivalent to human lives” and working . . . . Continue Reading »

Dignity Panel

On Morning Joe a few minutes ago, Pat Buchanan described the fear behind the death panel debate as the fear that old people without anyone around who loves them will be steered in their final years toward elective euthanasia. Surely the steering power of a government authorized to command and . . . . Continue Reading »

Rise of the Techno-Rubes

Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity. You can understand it when you hear it, and you can explain it to people. Social Security: Retired workers receive a public pension to help them through old age. Medicare: People over 65 can receive taxpayer-funded health care. Welfare: . . . . Continue Reading »

Climate Change and Technocracy

Cards on the table, since those who dare even to broach this subject are inevitably subjected to name-calling. The ” collapsing consensus ” notwithstanding, I’m among those who believe that the earth is getting warmer, that human beings probably have something to do with it, and . . . . Continue Reading »

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