Spend enough time around the good and dead people of the past and you will grow in their direction – just like you might grow in the direction of your millennial peers.
Tag: media
The Real Emergency Isn’t About the Wall; It’s About the Separation of Powers.
If Congress has any desire to save what’s left of the Constitution — and any political will to act on that desire — the obvious, immediate, and absolutely necessary next step is the impeachment of Donald Trump and his removal from the office of President of the United States. Nothing less will suffice, and the case against him is airtight.
Deadlock and Partisan Bitterness
Why does American politics seem so deadlocked? The media mostly focuses on issues where Democrats and Republicans refuse to compromise because they strongly disagree: immigration, guns, health care. But American politics often seems deadlocked even when both parties agree. For example, supermajorities of both parties want to protect DREAMers, but they’ve never reached an agreement to do so. How is this possible?
Thinking and Doing Podcast & Should Social Media Police Speech? (14m) – Episode 287
Episode 287 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: his new podcast “Thinking and Doing” that will explore logical fallacies, cognitive biases, Stoicism, and personal philosophy; an article he wrote in July 2018 looking at the role social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and reddit should play in policing speech on their platforms; and more.
The First Rule of AIPAC Is: You Do Not Talk about AIPAC
For decades, howling “antisemitism” any time the matter came up proved an effective tactic for shutting down public discussion of the “special relationship” under which Israel receives lavish foreign aid subsidies, effective control of US foreign policy in the Middle East, and lately even state (and pending federal) legislation requiring government contractors to sign loyalty oaths to Israel’s government. The Israeli lobby’s power to prevent that discussion seems to be slipping, however. Why?
Who Owns You?
The problem is not this or that regulation. Nor is the problem even the FDA itself. The root problem is the government’s claim to jurisdiction over so-called “public health.” The ultimate question is: who owns you? The answer will determine who is to be in charge of health.
We Wanted Tech
“We wanted workers, but we got people instead.” This line from Max Frisch didn’t just give George Borjas the title of his most recent book. At last Friday’s immigration conference in St. Cloud, Borjas declared it his all-time favorite immigration epiphany. The point, he explained, is that immigrants aren’t just machines that produce stuff; they have broad social effects on our culture, politics, budget, and beyond.
Educational Trolling (17m) – Episode 003
Episode 003: Jared shares his five rules to help facilitate better social media communication.
Immigration and Redistribution: The Research to Trust
Evaluating the quality of research is laborious. Unless you re-do the whole paper yourself, how do you know the authors were not only truthful, but careful? Faced with this quandary, one of my favorite heuristics is to ask: Did the authors want to find this result? If the answer is No, I put a lot more credence into the results. In research as in the law, statements contrary to interest count more.
“No-Knock Raid” is Just Another Term for “Violent Home Invasion”
On January 28, home invaders murdered 58-year-old Rhogena Nicholas and 59-year-old Dennis Tuttle of Houston, Texas. Nicholas and Tuttle wounded five of the (numerous) armed burglars before being slain. The Houston PD brought guns, battering rams, and overwhelming force to what they didn’t even expect to be a knife fight. It was supposed to just be a quick episode of “law enforcement theater,” a show of force to show the mere mundanes who’s in charge.