TGIF: Anti-Woke Isn’t Necessarily Pro-Liberty

TGIF: Anti-Woke Isn’t Necessarily Pro-Liberty

by | Jan 28, 2022 | , , , , , ,

I had a reminder this week that those who oppose fashionable postmodernist-style attacks on reason and objectivity, such as "critical" race and gender theories, are not necessarily consistent friends of liberty and the free society. That reminder came in a recent video commentary by Dave Rubin on a year-old speech by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas before the U.S. Conference of Mayors. What upset Rubin so much that he had to play the video clip several times was this statement from Mayorkas: "Unlawful presence in the United States will alone not be a basis for an...

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TGIF: Easy Cases May Make Bad Rules

TGIF: Easy Cases May Make Bad Rules

by | Jan 21, 2022 | , , , ,

Hard cases make bad law, an adage apparently coined before 1837 tells us. In other words, "an extreme case is a poor basis for a general law that would cover a wider range of less extreme cases." Not everyone has agreed that this is the case, but we'll let that go. I just want to point out that easy cases also may make bad law, or at least bad rules. Take the question of whether social networks should kick people off for saying things that other people find discomfiting, offensive, or "threatening" (with that word being used extremely loosely, having nothing to do with a physical threat)....

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What Is Mutual Altruism?

by | Jan 18, 2022 | ,

According to Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, theft is "selfish," while trade is "mutually altruistic." If genes and people are "selfish," as Dawkins believes, why does mutual altruism, which includes all forms of cooperation, ever happen? He replies that it happens because mutual altruism benefits the parties more than "purely selfish" behavior would. This is an astounding acknowledgment. If that's so -- and I believe it is -- why not call cooperation mutual selfishness, mutual self-interest, or something like that? Why introduce the idea of mutual altruism if in fact such actions are...

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TGIF: Utopianism May Be Hazardous to Your Health

TGIF: Utopianism May Be Hazardous to Your Health

by | Jan 14, 2022 | , , , , , ,

Beware those who claim to have a detailed blueprint for the ideal society. If such a person thinks you stand in the way, you may get run over. That's how it is with utopians. They want everything just so, and woe betide those who disagree. The repeated attempts at creating ideal societies haven't gone so well. To name just a few, see France 1789, Russia 1917, Italy 1922, Germany 1933, Eastern Europe 1945, China 1949, Cambodia 1976, Venezuela 1999. The problem is that the architects of utopia have little tolerance for those who aren't wholeheartedly with the program. Any departure from the...

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TGIF: National or Enlightenment Liberal Identity?

TGIF: National or Enlightenment Liberal Identity?

by | Jan 7, 2022 | , , , , ,

I find much to admire about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch-American scholar, author, and one-time politician who has drawn international attention to the violence against women and girls not only in Muslim-majority countries but also in the West at the hands of Muslim immigrants. Hirsi Ali escaped from a marriage arrangement and then became a pariah among Muslims, including her own family, and even the target of a murder conspiracy because of her public statements and writings, her break with Islam, and her collaboration with director Theo van Gough on the film Submission. As a...

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TGIF: Pursue Your Happiness and Forget the Rest

TGIF: Pursue Your Happiness and Forget the Rest

by | Dec 31, 2021 | , , , ,

How about we do something novel in the new year? Let's stop worrying about the stuff most politicians, pundits, and activists want us to worry about and instead think about ourselves, our families, our friends, and whatever communities we choose to be part of. Let's forget about "the country" and the rest of the world. Let's individually pursue happiness. All I'm saying is that it's finally time for the politicians, bureaucrats, and know-it-all intelligentsia, left or right, to get out of the way and let us set our own agendas. Too self-centered? Well, too bad. Much evil results from people...

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TGIF: Double-Rigging of the Auto Market

TGIF: Double-Rigging of the Auto Market

by | Dec 17, 2021 | , , , , , ,

U.S. government interference with our lives often resembles a Russian matryoshka doll: regulation is nested in more regulation. Take the provision of Biden's pending Build Back Better bill that would create a big tax credit for people who buy U.S.-built electric vehicles (EV). Not only would the government distort the domestic auto market by rigging it in favor of electric vehicles over conventional ones, but it also would rig the EV market, Trump-style, in favor of U.S.-made products. This implies that "foreign" EVs are so attractive to American buyers that the domestic offerings need help...

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TGIF: Joe Biden, Let’s Not Go to War

TGIF: Joe Biden, Let’s Not Go to War

by | Dec 10, 2021 | , , ,

Here's a good idea: let's not go to war against Russia. Let's not even rattle a saber at Russia (or China, for that matter) because even wars that no one really wants can be blundered into. Many losers would be left in the aftermath, even if nuclear weapons were kept out of sight, but no one would win. So as that smart Defense Department computer says in the 1983 movie WarGames, "The only winning move is not to play." The crisis du jour is Ukraine; before that, it was Georgia, both former Soviet republics. For some inexplicable reason, Russia's rulers get nervous when the U.S. foreign policy...

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