So Donald Trump has announced his candidacy for president, which reminded me of a story. A guy has a flat tire and, as it happened, it was right outside the grounds of a mental hospital. He was changing the tire, and enough things went wrong in the course of the operation that a small crowd …
Copping a Plea
So we need to spend some time talking about the police, about police misbehavior and brutality, and about the hard partisan line taken by some who rant against the cops on Facebook. Let’s talk policy first, and justice second. As a matter of law and policy, I believe that citizens should be absolutely free to …
Renewing the Patriot Farce
This weekend will determine whether or not the metadata collection of the Patriot Act will be renewed. I do not wish to speak to this as any kind of insider, for I clearly am not. Rather I think we all ought to step back and take a look at this from fifty yards away. Let …
The After Deck of the Pirate Ship
Whenever I write on things like liberty and taxes, it is easy for some to try to stuff me into the wrong box. And upon my making this objection, some might expect me to go on to say that I hate labels. But actually I love labels, which are the precondition of all honest discourse. …
Three Senators and a Leper
One of our great cultural problems today is that Christians do not understand civics. And by civics, I do not mean the “how a bill becomes a law” kind of civics, but rather I refer to our very common misunderstanding of the true nature of our appointed government. We have a particular form of government …
Ukraine #5
So as I wrap up my discussion of issues surrounding Ukraine, I want to do three things, which I will take in the standard order of 1,2,and 3. First I want to provide a handful of links (from various sane perspectives) to help illustrate how much this is like trying to unscramble a pan full …
Ukraine #4
Please allow me just one more set of background observations before I say what I think ought to be done in Ukraine. When we teach math to kids, we are not training future mathematicians, although some will wind up there. We are training future grocers, carpenters, housewives, etc. We want what they learn about math …
Ukraine #3
We have already noted how complicated things in Ukraine are, and I trust I have cast suspicion on any approach that wants to reduce everything to clear and simple (and therefore ideological) talking points. To the extent we are involved in this kind of thing at all, our chief job is to stay out of …
Ukraine #2
Back in the old days, when Americanism was more robust than it is now, it used to be said that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” What this was supposed to mean is that our domestic disagreements paled in comparison to whatever it was the Nazis were doing. Now there was a time when this …
Ukraine #1
In the past, I have made passing references to Ukraine, and those references have made clear my distaste for Putin’s brand of Russian adventurism, along with my sympathies for Ukraine, stuck as they are with us on their side, us being such a hapless chump of a superpower. For example, after the breakup of the …