Enjoying the view from Limbo
Q. What would Donald Trump have to do to change your mind about him? A. He would have to replace his rational faculty with that of Thomas Jefferson, his temperament with that of Ronald Reagan, and his principles with those of George Washington. Unfortunately, his life, past and present, shows him to be on the very opposite end of the spectrum on all...
Economic engagement with tyrants has long been proffered, by “conservatives” and “liberals” alike, as a way to moderate the tyrant’s aggression while serving your own national interests by opening up new markets. In the end, you will win short-term financial gains at the price of giving the tyrant an artificial economic, technological (aka military), and legitimacy boost he could never have achieved without...
I do not have much to say about the news that P. J. O’Rourke has died. All I know about him is that he was a libertarian of sorts, and that he was a very funny writer, and on occasion — the phrase “on occasion” in this context being not a belittlement but a high compliment — an insightfully funny one. For a...
I hate corporate slogans, celebrity spokesmen, logo-infested products, and the like. Make something well and tell me about it. If I like it and think I need it, I will buy it. Do not lie to me to try to sucker me into buying your product. Do not pay some famous actor or singer to “represent” your product as a means of cajoling...
Good news, everyone! The U.S. women’s soccer team, which is currently enjoying its fifteen minutes of stench as celebrity social justice agitators du jour, is about to gain a much needed influx of deodorant. Literally. A few days back, I wrote about the soccer persons’ lack of basic economic understanding — or rather, the fact that their greed is bigger than their worth...
Donald Trump is convinced he can manipulate anyone with his brilliant financial mind. His true believers, as they watch him doing everything they railed against as anti-market folly for years, anxiously tell the critics to “wait and see what happens before passing judgment.” This means they have forgotten, or they are hoping you have forgotten, what we are supposedly “waiting for.” The question...
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the most exotically-named American political hoax since Barack Hussein Obama, is out there talking again — never a wise choice for her — this time about healthcare. Invoking the “death panel” imagery made famous by Sarah Palin, Ocasio-Cortez tries to turn the concept around on critics of her socialist fantasies: Actually, we have for-profit “death panels” now: they are companies +...
In recent years, there has been an increasing undercurrent of discussion among conservative scholars and public voices about whether conservatism is theoretically hamstrung by the continued use of the term “capitalism” in mainstream political discussion. I wrote about this question six years ago, before it became something of a hot issue, and I’d like to reproduce my take on it below. A few...
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