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TGIF: Beware of All Tribalism

TGIF: Beware of All Tribalism

by | Mar 17, 2023 | , , , , , ,

Tribalism is bad. Sensible people will know what I mean by tribe. It's not a club based on some common preference like stamp collecting or bowling or cooking. It's more than that. It involves a judgment-suspending commitment. Nationalism is a good example. Tribalism is bad because it can erode important social cooperation, which comes in many forms including the division of labor and trade, domestic and foreign. It's also bad because it encourages people to overlook even the grossest injustice that they would not tolerate if their tribe was on the receiving end. We lately have witnessed...

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TGIF: Hear, O Israel — Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death

TGIF: Hear, O Israel — Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death

by | Mar 10, 2023 | , , , , , , ,

An older generation of Americans, including Jewish Americans, admire the colonists who resisted the British king and parliament in the late 1700s. Jewish Americans go further and admire the Judeans who revolted against the Greeks and Romans (twice) in antiquity. So isn't it peculiar that they do not applaud the similar Palestinian resistance to Israel's domination? The most we get from U.S. politicians is Bernie Sanders's weak statement about putting conditions on the massive aid to Israel, which is in political disarray because its ruling competition wants to subordinate the independent...

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TGIF: Which Way — Capitalism, Socialism, or Something Else?

TGIF: Which Way — Capitalism, Socialism, or Something Else?

by | Mar 3, 2023 | , , , , , ,

Big questions are being thrashed out these days. One of the biggest is this: do we want capitalism or socialism? Unfortunately, the online discussions I've witnessed have been, to put it as politely as I can, terrible. (For an example, see this one between Reason senior editor Robby Soave and political commentator Briahna Joy Gray, cohosts of The Hill's online show "Rising.") Let's start with the words themselves. We're in a linguistic mess. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that nearly everyone has his own definition of capitalism and socialism. So when people get together to hash...

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Crime and Poverty

by | Mar 2, 2023 | ,

“The theory that crime is caused by poverty is not supported by the known facts. The very poor, in fact, tend to be just as law-abiding as the rich, and perhaps more so. To argue otherwise is to libel multitudes of people who keep to decency under severe difficulties, and in the face of constant temptation.” —H. L. Mencken, Minority Report: H. L. Mencken’s Notebooks, 1956

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Don’t Be Silent

by | Feb 28, 2023 | ,

We should reject the fashionable idea that one should never write or post anything that possibly could be used by bad people for bad purposes. That admonition brings two things to mind. First, it fails its own test. If good people avoid a topic because even constructive analysis might be put to bad use, the very avoidance will likely fuel conspiracy theories about how this or that interest group controls the public debate. Thus the fashionable idea is self-subverting — much as the precautionary principle is. Second, it reminds me of what Ludwig Wittgenstein, in a very different context,...

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Can There Be Only One Race?

by | Feb 27, 2023 | ,

I'm old enough to remember this 1960s Lay's Potato Chips commercial. (Hell, I'm almost old enough to remember when plays were in black and white!)  In the commercial a man (Bert Lahr, the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz) faces a challenge from the devil, who has a bag of Lay's: "Bet you can't eat one." "That's absolutely absurd," Lahr says; of course he can eat one. After enjoying the chip he says, "I'll have another," to which the devil says, "Oh no. I said just one. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...." Admittedly, this is a long and winding road to my point: there can't be only one race. Most people...

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TGIF: Immigration Foes, What’s the Beef?

TGIF: Immigration Foes, What’s the Beef?

by | Feb 24, 2023 | , , , , , ,

If people are going to hate on immigrants, they should at least get their stories straight. Do immigrants take our jobs or do they sponge off us through welfare? Today, let's talk about jobs. Recently I was listening to Spiked's Brendan O'Neill interview Batya Ugar-Sargon, the left/right-populist assistant editor at Newsweek, when I heard say: "The elites love low-wage slave labor imported by the cartels to work service industry jobs, that they would rather have cheap labor than have to pay more for it." This is nutty working-class populism in its most uninhibited form. Ungar-Sargon would...

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