One of our leading experts on the ethics and public policy of scientific innovation, Yuval Levin has written a searching and philosophically deep book on the complicated relationship between science and politics in America. He addresses the divergent ways in which the right and the left typically . . . . Continue Reading »
Thru Walter Olson at Secular Right , I perused this morning the Buckley-hosted Sharon Statement , "adopted in conference at Sharon, Connecticut, on 11 September 1960." Olson wanted to get this point across: the statement’s choice of language can also be seen as a deft stroke of . . . . Continue Reading »
When anyone writes anything positive about smoking, I can predict with deterministic confidence that some commenter with a dead or dying grandparent will appear to tell his story in the comments section. A wag would compare it to the deterministic confidence with which I can predict the increased . . . . Continue Reading »
Another log for the fire . The below is just food for thought, as well as further proof that Shakespeare still puts us all in very deep shade. Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,— That to the use of actions . . . . Continue Reading »
1. Pinch hitting at Schwenkler’s, William R. Brafford solicits my comment on the friendly R.R. Reno’s latest: I hope it’s clear that I see the problem of stability and dynamism as one of balance, of figuring out where to set limits. And here Reno asserts that it is most important . . . . Continue Reading »
It has been telling that Obama has recruited to his ranks a slew of veteran Clinton appointees of yesteryear. Much has been made of the manner in which this strategy seems to undercut not only his criticisms of Clinton style politics but also his promise of seismic change—he has surrounded . . . . Continue Reading »
Thanksgiving is a holiday devoted to the virtue of gratitude which, one could argue, finds less than hospitable ground in the modern world. The Lockean position on nature, that it furnishes only worthless materials that gain value through an imposition of labor, could not be more . . . . Continue Reading »
Rod quotes David Rieff, who writes in personally, and reflects: consumerism is Promethean knowledge and [ . . . ] the only alternative to it is economic catastrophe —- something only the most convinced of misanthropes could possibly welcome. Is he correct? Is the only alternative to being . . . . Continue Reading »
While much of the talk on this blog, appropriately enough, has been about the opportunities presented in defeat for a rethinking of conservative principles there might also be some occasssion for a reassessment of contemporary liberalism as well. The media insists on presenting Obama’s . . . . Continue Reading »
If I read him correctly, President-elect Obama seeks to blur the ethnic-cultural aspect of the individual to the point where we can, as a nation, achieve true "diversity," a oneness of purpose that will unite America with the people of the world in brotherhood and, no doubt, . . . . Continue Reading »
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