Good Republican Watch

Writing in the Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch , Rob Portman proves his credentials as a Good Republican. When he found that his son is gay, he questioned his earlier opposition to gay marriage: “I wrestled with how to reconcile my Christian faith with my desire for Will to have the same opportunities . . . . Continue Reading »

Tyranny of Nobody

Arendt has some sharp observations on the dangers of bureaucratization in On Violence (81): “Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and here all are equally powerless we have a . . . . Continue Reading »

Good Republican Watch

Republicans are changing their minds on same-sex marriage, but, according to NRO’s Daniel Foster , in more complicated ways than might appear. Some raw numbers to start: “opposition to same-sex marriage is increasingly tenuous, particularly along two axes. First, self-described tea-party . . . . Continue Reading »

Is Our Republicans Learning?

I want to like the new Ryan budget, but James Pethokoukis points out several of its problems. The new Ryan budget drops the top marginal income tax rate to twenty-five percent. That is lower than the top marginal tax rate proposed by Mitt Romney. Who outside of a mental institution believes that . . . . Continue Reading »

The Sun And The Moon

You should read this article by R. R. Reno. I’ll wait until you come back. He gets to the point in his first paragraph where he writes: Our political culture is now being shaped by liberals. That’s not because their ideas are sound. They’re often not. But conservatives largely . . . . Continue Reading »

Random (Republican Party) Thoughts

1. I saw Paul Ryan on today’s Fox News Sunday . Ryan did a pretty good job making his proposed spending cuts and premium support Medicare policies seem like nonideological common sense He did about as well as could reasonably have been expected given the subject matter. I was really impressed . . . . Continue Reading »

Conspiratorial Hobbes

In his TLS review of Noel Malcolm’s three-volume edition of Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan , David Runciman summarizes the origins of Leviathan. Hobbes wrote the book in France, watching the civil war unfold, sometimes serving as tutor to the future Charles II. As he finished writing in 1650, he . . . . Continue Reading »

Thoughts On The Rand Paul Thing

1. Don’t cry for the Obama administration. If Bush-appointed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had made the same mistake as Eric Holder, and left the door open to the assassination of American citizen noncombatants on American soil in areas where the courts were still operating, the Democrats . . . . Continue Reading »