From the Left
/Politics
Why Won't the Government Explain the Migrant Crisis?
I fantasize about a government that tries to act like it is, if not quite by the people, at least for the people and thus internalizes the principle that the people deserve to be treated like fully vested adults rather than idiotic children.
Nothing about what the media calls the "migrant crisis" withstands the slightest scrutiny. This begins ...Read more
The Strategic Voting Fallacy
Many people who typically vote Republican but dislike former President Donald Trump, and others who typically vote Democratic but dislike Vice President Kamala Harris, are wrestling with a fundamental dilemma of the voter who lives in a duopoly.
A vote is an endorsement. A vote declares to the world: "I approve of this candidate." There is no ...Read more
It's Time to End Our Cynical Policy of International Disruption
Mainstream American political leaders regularly argue that the United States adheres to, defends and promotes a "rules-based international order." What's that? It's rarely defined.
The best summary I've been able to find was articulated by John Ikenberry of Princeton University, introduced by the Financial Times in 2023 as "an influential ...Read more
Refusing to Censor Speech Isn't the Same as Agreeing With It
If someone said something I found annoying or offensive, my mother taught me, the appropriate response was to allow them to finish speaking and reply with a calm, considered counterargument. Now you're supposed to talk over them until they shut up.
Or, better yet, cut their mic and show them the door.
Censorship has become a bipartisan norm....Read more
Millions Have No Home. You Don't Need Two.
Responding to polls that show that voters are worried and angry about the high cost of housing, both major parties are floating plans to make buying a home more affordable. Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats want to encourage new housing construction and subsidize first-time homebuyers by $25,000, which economists worry would have ...Read more
We Need a Universal High Income
"Get a job!" That's the cliched response to panhandlers and anyone else who complains of being broke. But what if you can't?
That dilemma is the crux of an evolving silent crisis that threatens to undermine the foundation of the American economic model.
Two-thirds of gross domestic product, most of the economy, is fueled by personal consumer...Read more
We Have Big Problems. The Parties Offer Tiny Solutions.
The U.S. government wastes approximately $4.5 trillion each year. "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money," Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, an Illinois Republican, famously said, and said often. In this case, you're talking about thousands of billions. (Four and a half trillion dollars is the ...Read more
Cut the Defense Budget by 97.5%
The United States is one of the most politically polarized countries in the world. Because effective lawmaking requires bipartisanship, and members of Congress are, like their constituents, at their most ideologically divided point in a half-century, cooperation is in increasingly short supply. As a result -- or, more precisely, nonresult -- ...Read more
Don't Negotiate Against Yourselves, Lefties
Anyone who has experience haggling at a flea market has intuited the basics of negotiating. If a seller offers the item you want at a fire-sale price that you're unlikely to find elsewhere, smile, pay the asking price and walk away before they change their mind. If the requested price is many times higher than you're willing to pay, just walk ...Read more
Don't Get Obama'd Again
Then-Sen. Barack Obama's 2008 run, a classic identity play, emphasized the history-making potential of electing the nation's first Black president. No one knew or cared much about Obama's policy positions, and he didn't bother to share them. Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 and 2020 bids were policy arguments focused around a succinct set of issues: ...Read more
Make Kamala Earn Our Votes
Democrats were relieved when President Joe Biden finally pulled out of the presidential race. That was understandable. It was easy to see why they quickly coalesced behind Vice President Kamala Harris as Biden's replacement: Time was short, there's no standard party process for putting on a snap second round of primaries, and passing over a ...Read more
No Sympathy for Biden
Poor Joe. No. Poor us . Poor United States. Poor Democratic Party.
We've been suckered. While we were fearfully obsessing over the ethically challenged former President Donald Trump, a much more talented grifter -- President Joe Biden, along with his hidden passel of coconspirators -- conned the electorate, the news media and most of ...Read more
Violent Speech May Not Cause Violent Acts. So What?
With the exception of those who explain themselves, like John Wilkes Booth and Leon Czolgosz, political assassins tend to take their motives to the grave. Though the real reasons for their acts tend to be personal to the point of quirky -- like John Hinckley hoping to impress Jodie Foster -- Americans often point the finger at inflammatory ...Read more