Posted on June 26th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Every society depends on an experience of membership: a sense of who ‘we’ are, why we belong together, and what we share. This experience is pre-political: it precedes all political institutions, and provides our reason for accepting them. It unites left and right, blue-collar and white-collar, man and woman, parent and child. To threaten this [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on June 26th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Conservatives venerate the free market and see smaller government as an end in itself. Liberals do not venerate government in the same way, and we do not see larger government as an end in and of itself. For us, everything works on a case-by-case basis. Should government provide everybody’s education? Yes. Should government manufacture everybody’s [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on June 26th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
There is much to be said in favor of the classical liberal tradition, even in its extreme libertarian form. But where has this tradition ended up: in the adulation of rich zombies who are the perfect illustration of all that has gone wrong in America life, our stupidity, our weakness and cowardice, our complete inability [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on June 26th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Daniel McCarthy points out a new blog by libertarian (or is it Jeremytarian?) Jeremy Lott, author of the new book, In Defense of Hypocrisy. He also happens to be acquainted with Michael Brendan Dougherty (I know, I know, who ISN’T acquainted with Michael Brendan Dougherty?). Due to some technical problems, I cannot yet [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on June 24th, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Leave it to Charles Krauthammer to take something as simple and decent as a paean to a country he loves and admires (in this case, Australia) and turn it into another tendentious argument about interventionist foreign policy:
That bravery breeds affection in America for another reason as well. Australia is the only country that has fought [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on June 23rd, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Unbeknownst to anyone on the Right, we have received a defector in the form of The New Republic! So says Kos himself here. Jonathan Chait at TNR complains about the Kossacks’ “sectarian” mentality and Kos’ own “paranoid” mentality. Is there any way that we could return said defector to his home country? [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on June 23rd, 2006 by Daniel Larison
That’s Leon Hadar’s very good, sarcastic response to the latest jingo “news” stories. I’m still waiting for Mr. Bush to tell us about the great opportunity to buy prime oceanfront property in Midland, or perhaps Rick Santorum will offer to sell us a bridge in Brooklyn.
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Filed under: politics
Posted on June 23rd, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Just when I might have been starting to feel sorry that he was going to get humiliated in this fall’s election (he is the closest thing to a traditional conservative on social issues in the Senate), Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) reminds me why I will not be sorry to see him go. In the [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on June 22nd, 2006 by Daniel Larison
Now, even George Bush’s speechwriters know that the Hungarians did not actually succeed in 1956, nor did they actually overthrow their own Communist dictatorship nor expel the Soviets. The Soviet Union was the “Evil Empire” that claimed to have liberated Eastern Europe and establish true democracy. Eventually that Evil Empire died of its own excesses, [...]
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Filed under: politics
Posted on June 22nd, 2006 by Daniel Larison
I have so far refrained from commenting on the World Cup, pro or con, even though it seems to have become the thing bloggers want to discuss, either as a jumping-off point for some other political argument or as an exercise in Franklin Foer-like expertise on a sport about which most American bloggers, like their [...]
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Filed under: miscellaneous