At Mount Holyoke, the affirmative action committee sent to all departments an article by one of their professors of philosophy, arguing that preference on grounds of race and sex was proper, whereas no sound case in logic could be made for preference on grounds of ability.
Here’s a pretty-how-de-do! Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend and leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, wonders if someone like Donald Trump–so wealthy, so unashamed of his wealth–could possibly be Christian. He has also attacked Mike Pence for his concentration on sexual issues. Like many people who read the headlines, I wondered what religion could inform the mind of a man who attacks one politician for being rich and another for being moralistic, when he pretends to have married another man. (I forget which he pretends to be the wife and which the husband.) He can’t be a...
Many libertarians and classical liberals regard St. Thomas Aquinas as one of the enemies of liberty, of economic liberty in particular. According to these critics (and to some self-described Thomists, Thomas is supposed to have devised an abstract and systematic theory of an ideal state, which would have the power to regulate the marketplace by establishing a quasi-Marxian “just price” for all goods and by prohibiting all interest on investments. This opinion of Thomas’s economic views is substantially wrong, both in the details and in its overall point of view. Although Thomas was far from being a classical liberal, his...
I’ve spent the whole of last week at the circus. No, I don’t mean Westminster or Capitol Hill, I mean literally, with a bunch of clowns. Generally speaking, they don’t make clowns these days like they used to. A few of them have actually gone into politics. In Italy, what is now the largest political party was founded by one, and I note that another one, in Ukraine, is slated to be the next president. They call themselves comics to lend themselves respectability, but what they really are is tragic clowns. They play on the popular perception, famously a dramatic...
Do vicious killers who turn Buddhist have the right to be comforted by the guru of their choice? More pernicious nonsense about freedom of religion, courtesy of the GOP.
The rubber stampers known collectively as the Russian parliament have just passed a new law that forbids “disrespectful” public comment about the government, its structures, and its representatives.
The media continue to dunk their heads in a cesspool. CNN’s Chris Matthews fumed, “How could they let Trump off the hook?” Especially disgraced are “analysts” John Brennan, the former CIA honcho who voted for the Communist Party USA in 1976; and James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, who perjured himself before Congress on the total spying on the American people? They kept saying Trump was a spy for Russia and would be taken out by the Russia Hoax.
Rich trash celebrities have outraged the press by buying privileges that are reserved for “underprivileged minority students.”
I am often at a loss when challenged on my conclusion that diversity, in the world we inhabit today, is a synonym of conformity. My opponents in the argument make me feel like a conspiracy theorist, someone who has some truths to impart but needs a better broom to sweep them back from under the carpet and into the light of day. It’s not that he doesn’t have the facts, it’s that the facts are too many. What I want, I have often thought, is an illustration, a “meme” as is now fashionable to say, something with the simplicity of...
Bernie Sanders and other socialists keep pushing Medicare for All; meaning anyone without medical insurance, even those younger than 65, could sign up for what currently is a system for geezers, including me in a year. The reason is obvious: Medicare is a popular program in which seniors generally can choose their own doctors, and which provides mostly comprehensive care, albeit often needing supplemental plans. But if they want to expand government-provided health care, why don’t Bernie and the comrades instead expand the already existing, comprehensive medical system, by far the major activity of the Veterans Administration, which already even...
