“The alternative to free economic activity is not cooperation but coercion . . . Redistribution is absolutely incompatible with peace. Accepted as a norm for civil life, it means that social strife is inevitable” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 134).
Penalties for Do-Goodery
I take it as a given that Christians are called to be a force for good and for decency in the world, and that this good and this decency are best exhibited face-to-face with people you know and live with. The debates that arise when I write about what I am going to write about …
Here’s An Idea
Refugees are now pouring out of Zimbabwe, former Rhodesia, and I have a modest proposal. Let’s have a moratorium on all new proposals about international affairs, proposals designed to improve the lot of others and end injustice forever, until all the people who insisted on the course we followed with Rhodesia (for foundational moral reasons) …
Velcro Candidate
This is about the time in the campaign season that I start wishing that I could bring myself to vote for McCain, if for no other reason than to irritate the handwringers and Europeans. But alas, I am a man of principle. McCain would only irritate them for about 20 percent of the right reasons. …
Get Your Dibbies In
I am pleased to note that the online debate that Christopher Hitchens and I had over at Christianity Today is now going to appear as a small book. Many thanks to CT for sponsoring that thing in the first place, and to Canon Press for the fine work they have been doing in putting this …
Some Transactions Are Zero Sum
“But only redistributive processes are zero-sum games; protective tariffs, mortgage subsidies, and armed robberies all transfer wealth forcibly from one person to another. Economic transactions are voluntary exchanges, which means that both parties perceive themselves as benefiting. A given economic transaction is zero-sum only if one party has miscalculated or been deceived” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols …
Real Ambition
INTRODUCTION: So we have considered desire, envy, and competition, and we now come to ambition. To address the subject rightly, we have to recall what we learned thus far. There is a certain kind of desire that every human being has to deal with, and this is a desire that tends to veer toward envy. …
Gimme Gimme
“All true needs—such as food, drink, and companionship—are satiable. Illegitimate wants—pride, envy, greed—are insatiable” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 107).
And It Encounters a Lot of Realities
“Envy cannot be assuaged any more than cancer can be; they are both pathologies whose very being requires expansion to their neighbor’s territory. There is no fence that will ever be respected, no limitation that will be recognized as legitimate, no sense of proportion or humility sufficient to smother a sense of inferiority. By its …
Lickspittles in the Entourage
Terrorism is back in the news, at least in a way that requires us to revisit our definition of it. Jimmy Carter is apparently comfortable with meeting with the head of Hamas, and Obama is now tagged with his friendship with William Ayers, one who has admitted his role in various bombings of public buildings …