Unqualified Offerings

By Thoreau
1) It is fascinating to deal with a person who talks a lot about work-life balance but is incapable of comprehending that people who make less money and have less prestigious jobs often have weekend hours that they can’t get out of.  This becomes a problem when trying to make plans, and I have [...]

By Thoreau
Ah, Massachusetts candidates!
In the town hall of 250 people — with his oversized debt clock as a backdrop — Romney addressed perceptions and concerns that he is “a flip flopper.”
“In the private sector,” he said, “if you don’t change your view when the facts change, well you’ll get fired for being [...]

By Thoreau
Details are still sketchy about the Evil Fiziks Type who was arrested in Massachusetts for a plot to blow up the Capitol building (I’m still waiting to hear the Tea Party’s response), but we do know that the FBI provided fake explosives, and that the whole plot revolved around toy airplanes.  A few months [...]

By Thoreau
I can’t claim that the more outrageous elements of the crowds at the debates speak (or cheer, or boo) for anybody other than themselves.  Then again, I also can’t claim that they don’t speak for others.  What I can say is that they don’t look good, and if I were a tactician for the [...]

From comments downblog, frankly speculative musing that may even count as libertarian “bashing,” finally vindicating Radley Balko’s accusation all these months later. But it might just be excuse-making.
What I’m wondering is whether “libertarian” is an inevitably temporary political outlook. The answer must surely be No, right? I mean, Brian Doherty has a big, thick book [...]

By Thoreau
As we ponder the correct interpretation of conservative rhetoric on “limited government” and the like, it occurs to me that (unsurprisingly) there are analogies between that rhetoric and the way people talk in bureaucratic organizations.  In my institution, there are certain phrases (some obvious due to their ubiquity in my sector, some specific to [...]

In comments downblog, Julian objects to my thesis on the grounds that it’s wrong. A telling objection if true! So let me give a completely non-theoretical example of the kind of thing I’m talking about.
In 1992, Jeffrey Bell published Populism and Elitism: Politics in the Age of Equality. While the book is not much discussed [...]

Pretty funny (embed not work: it’s SNL’s cold open of “Either the 7th or 8th Republican Presidential Debate” from last night).

By Thoreau
Related to Jim’s discussion of libertarianism vs. conservatism, I have noted before that some of the people who blow the best dog whistles also seem to work hard to live up to the libertarian critique of The System:  The System is a racket, they say, and then they demonstrate it.  See: Banksters, Private Military [...]

A Saturday Twitter exchange highlights a couple of weaknesses I think libertarians have in coping with the politics of non-libertarians, particularly conservatives.
Part the First
Part the Second
Taking the original tweet literally, the author has a gap in his understanding (”I don’t get”) about why Republicans have Republican opinions. Taking it a bit more figuratively, the author [...]