Steve wrote an interesting look at why someone like Pat Buchanan should not be painted with a broad condemnation brush and written-off solely based on his comments related to race. Buchanan gave a very interesting analysis * of the war issue and the larger ideological context in which it resides : [ * - Jeanne Kirkpatrick was a professor of mine at Georgetown University. From 1994-95 I studied in her courses 'Critique of Utopia' and 'Capitalism, Competition, and Democracy' .] I agree with everything Buchanan says in the video but do I agree with everything Buchanan says anywhere else I have heard him? Certainly not but it worries me not an iota because , as Steve mentioned, he is not elected and has no public power to wield over any of us. Nevertheless, as the above video attests, Buchanan has had valid and insightful ideas and analyses for many big questions, not the least of which was a very realpolitik critique of the Iraq war. Even more, his critique was based n...

Poverty is not the normal place you would expect to find the well to do. But today thanks largely to a socially minded young man named Marcelo Armstrong who took a few tourists into Rocinha , Rio de Janeiro's largest favela , or shantytown, you find people from all walks of life slumming it. From rap music in the United States, to the development of favela tourism or barrio tourism in Latin America and Asia one finds that being poor, while it has innumerable hardships, is becoming cool. Of course while one must be excessively poor to get a visit from Bono or Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt, the middle class can now revel in their relative affluence, despite their growing minority status. Favela tourism is often called by its critics an form of exploitative practice ; but is it? Many times shanty tourism brings much needed money into the barrio and into the life of the people who need it the most: the poor. When entrepreneurial minded, poverty stricken people become self-taught...

Over at Delaware Watch, Dana has an interesting post on The Spreading Totalitarianism of the Private Sector , which I recommend to you. I agree with many of his observations, if not necessarily his conclusions. After detailing the kind of enforced groupthink ceremonies at MBNA that George Orwell appeared to describe in 1984, he concludes [edited for brevity not to distort; go read the original]: I am not making a case for smoking or obesity. I'm arguing that in the US we locate the fear of authoritarian control over our lives in the wrong sphere of influence. We fear it's the public sector that primarily threatens our liberty when, in fact , it's the workplace in the private sector that is undermining our liberties.... Some mistakes are so elementary that one must resort to uttering truisms to make the point: Totalitarian control is totalitarian control whether it occurs in the public or private sector.... But we mustn't control the private sector democratically throug...

While in the Middle East and Europe and America members of the LGBT community face legal barriers and a seemingly insurmountable fight with systems that lack fundamental toleration of their lifestyle; in Thailand restrictions on being "gay" or "transsexual" are limited by family custom and not so much by society: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Thailand http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/08/081005thaiArmy.htm Thailand OKs Gay, Transsexual Soldiers by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff Posted: August 10, 2005 1:00 pm ET (Bangkok) Thailand on Wednesday removed restrictions on gays and transsexuals serving in the military. Thailand has a draft but gays and transsexuals have been barred from serving under the "mental disorder" exemption. All Thai men at the age of 20 are required by law to register to serve. Recruits are selected through a lottery system, but each year thousands of LGBT draftees are rejected. Wednesday the military announced that it was rem...

I only have one question today: Is it me, or are the presidental elections starting to remind you more and more of a conglomeration of South Park Episodes?

I have a rule of thumb that I teach my students about the concepts of a useable past . I ask them, "How do you know that a politician of either party is distorting 'the lessons of history' to support his or her current political agenda?" The answer: "Look to see if their lips are moving." Politicians and other ideologues are not interested in history for the sake of finding out what happened; they are interested in a useable past wherein they cherry pick individual facts and stories to build a case, ignoring all data and arguments to the contrary. Sometimes this process becomes really troubling, especially when you mix in some of your own folk heroes. Here, try this: This sounds like a standard if mundane rendition of the early years of the Revolutionary War, doesn't it? Military operations continued into 1782. With the occupation of the rebel capital of Philadelphia the colonial troops were forced to go into winter capital of Philadelphia the coloni...

I'm not an Ayn Rand Libertarian Objectivist or anything, but I do think she was onto something about the virtues of selfishness--although not in quite the way she would have meant it. This comes to me after several weeks in the Delaware blogosphere in which (a) people who don't want opt-out or mandatory organ donation have been castigated as selfish for not wanting to share their organs after death, even if they have profound religious or philosophical doubts about the process.... (b) people who oppose abortion on moral or religious grounds have been accused of not giving a rat's ass essentially about living, breathing children.... (c) people who object to the tax increases (and potential loss of choices for them) involved in various schemes for universal health care have been portrayed as unfeeling toward the millions of uninsured.... Orwellian Progressive guru George Lakoff repeatedly makes the case for progressive taxation in terms of the idea that wealthier America...

One of the less enticing characteristics of the Delaware blogosphere is the vituperative tendency of posters (anonymous and otherwise) to attack those they disagree with by parodying their political positions. Sometimes it's funny in a biting, over-the-top way, but it rarely moves the argument forward. I'm a Libertarian, and I expect to have to make my arguments stand or fall on their own merits, not the flawed perceptions of a Libertarian point of view that other people have. So it's always annoying when somebody bases his or her argument on, "well, those fringe Libertarians who believe in letting people starve are at it again...." All of which brings me to Dana Garrett and social democracy. Dana pulls the trigger as fast as anybody, and he doesn't equivocate about his beliefs, your beliefs, or my beliefs. And, as a result, he gets portrayed as either a Marxist, a Collectivist, or a Socialist no matter how much he sputters that what he is closest to bein...

What to make of the Super Tuesday results? There are far better places you can go for traditional political analysis, and while I'm sure some will seep in here, that's not my primary intention. I want to speculate on the meaning of Super Tuesday for personal freedom--especially privacy rights--in the US. Privacy rights have been a dual casualty of the war on terror and corporatist data mining over the past seven years. Neither John McCain nor Hillary Clinton is likely to change that status quo very much. McCain is against torture, but on domestic surveillance he has a much more nuanced stance. Consider this interview he gave to Chris Wallace in 2006. Here's the part McCain would like us to recall: WALLACE : But you do not believe that currently he has the legal authority to engage in these warrant-less wiretaps. MCCAIN : You know, I don't think so. Of course, he'd probably prefer we don't remember the rest of his answer : MCCAIN : You know, I don't thi...

About two weeks ago I got into it with Jason on Delawareliberal over (of all things) opera . What's interesting is the comment Jason made in critiquing one of my argument: The logical fallacy that Libertarians like most, above all logical fallacies is that slippery slope argument. I pointed out in rebuttal: Not all slippery slope arguments are invalid–you guys use them all the time about Republicans when it suits your purposes, so get real. And Dana Garrett agreed with me: “Not all slippery slope arguments are invalid” Now there is a truth few know. Any chance you could teach it to Al Mascitti? If you tell him the predictable consequence of some action (that he likes, of course), his knee twitches and out comes the “You are committing the slippery slope fallacy.” Here’s the scoop on it folks: “If A happens, then by a gradual series of small steps through B, C,…, X, Y, eventually Z will happen, too. Z should not happen. Therefore, A should not happen, either.” The whole bit disappea...

Mid-Atlantic States Labo r reports that nationwide union membership rose last year from 12.0% of the American work force to (STOP THE PRESSES) 12.1%!!!! OK, seriously, the 311,000-worker gain is the largest gain since 1983, when unionized workers represented over 20% of American labor. Here's the part I found particularly interesting: A total of 7.5 percent of private-sector workers were in unions, and 35.9 percent of public-sector workers. What this seems to mean is that public-sector unions now form the bulk of the labor movement, which would include government unions, police, firefighters, and teachers. Now, for a second, let's bop over to Delaware Watch , where Dana has an article on Christine O'Donnell dropping her suit against her employer: Or does the sensible intuition lurk in the recesses of O’Donnell’s pretty head that since, for most people, our society is structured to require employment for survival and to thrive that no employer should have the right to threat...

Just because an item is catchy doesn't mean it's accurate. Here's one that I've seen before, picked up this time from Mid-Atlantic States Labor : Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6am. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA). After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA), he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO ) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) filled it with GAS from Saudi Arabia and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB. At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his Computer (Made In Malaysia ), Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) po...

Today Governor Ruth Ann Minner announced her final proposed $3.4 Billion budget. It includes no pay raise for State employees. Given that there seems to be virtually no chance that the General Assembly will take action on recent recommendations to repeal Delaware's Prevailing Wage Law for school construction (savings of $34 Million to be expected)--guaranteeing that labor costs on such projects will continue to rise--here's what that means in the NewSpeak language of our Progressive friends: Governor Ruth Ann Minner today proposed a massive transfer of wealth from all State employees to all contract laborers on State construction projects. So much for our teachers, prison guards, social service workers....

Recently, at First State Politics , Dave Burris has taken considerable heat for his stand that Delaware's Prevailing Wage laws should be repealed. I happen to agree with him, but that's not the point of this post. The arguments for and against this policy involve unions, taxpayer interest in reducing costs, and a wide variety of other factors, all of which can be argued with logic, passion, and evidence by all comers. That debate has been fruitful and enlightening from all sides, even though I doubt it has changed the position of too many (if any) of the participants. However, Dave made the following comment during the course of the debate: According to many scholars, prevailing wage laws were first created in order to help labor unions stifle the prevalence of black labor that was undercutting their racket. This has been seized upon by the Progressive blog Delaware Watch for an extended posting Disgusting: Dave Burris’ Use of the Race Card in the Prevailing Wage Debate , in...

Sometimes people say the damnedest things. Here's an admission I never expected to read from "Progressive" guru George Lakoff in his Thinking Points, A Progressive's Handbook [for] Communicating Our American Values and Vision (pp. 102-103): Another multifaceted conservative strategic initiative is "tort reform," which has been made to sound like it is just about capping large damage awards and lawyers' fees. It is really a destruction of the civil justice system's capacity to deter corporations from acts that harm the public, since it is the lawyers' fees that permit the system to function. Moreover, if successful, it will also dry up one of the major sources of campaign finance for progressive candidates, which comes from trial lawyers. You can handle the implications for yourself.

One of the problems with Libertarians is that, frankly, the theoretical and strategic writing of self-styled Progressives is so difficult to read that we don't do much of it. This is something we have to get over, especially as the Progressives seemed to be in full swing of pulling off the same trick that Ronald Reagan did for conservatives in the 1980s: reframing the public political discourse in their favor. Reagan, followed by talk radio, actually managed to make the term "liberal" one that even politicians who were avowedly liberal needed to avoid if they wanted to get elected or re-elected. Liberal as a "brand" still has not been successfully rehabilitated. On the other hand, Dubya--with a lot of help from his neo-con friends and his opponents--has managed to self-destruct the brand value of "Conservatism" that Reagan created, so much so that today Rush Limbaugh announced , "I can see possibly not supporting the Republican nominee this elec...