Complicity and the Strategy of Evasion
Imagine that an institution (“the Institution”) maintains a set of investments in various enterprises that make a clear and demonstrable contribution to some indisputable injustice. Now suppose that a set of stakeholders (“the Stakeholders”) objects to these investments, calling on the Institution to divulge the facts in a fuller way, and demanding divestment from the clearly objectionable investments. Continue reading
The glorious ongoing Institut Coppet online collection of Gustave de Molinari’s Complete Works has brought to light some correspondence between Molinari and Proudhon from their years of Brussels exile during Napoléon III’s regime in France. The letters are few in number and are not ideologically substantive, but they are nonetheless interesting. So I’ve translated them. Enjoy!
Every now and then, in debates about the political economy of health care, you’ll run into the physician who declares that he’s had it with being called a “provider,” and won’t put up with it a minute longer. He went to med school, he got an MD, he walked uphill-barefoot-in-the-snow-both-ways, from anatomy and physiology to endocrinology and immunology–and back. He did an internship. He did his residency. He spent his nights on call, sleeping in the hospital. He’s a physician, goddammit, not a “provider,” and he refuses to be called by the latter name. That’s the problem with health care today, by gum. The insurers and administrators have taken over, using new-fangled “provider” jargon, and lost touch with the good old days, when MDs were MDs, and reimbursement was fee for service. Continue reading
We’re reading Hayek’s famous paper, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” in our monthly reading group tomorrow. I’ve never been convinced by Hayek’s argument, and get less convinced every time I re-read the paper. I don’t have time to work out a full response to the paper, so here, for whatever it’s worth, is a quick laundry list of objections to be developed at some later date. Continue reading
February 2025
Here’s a bunch of announcements I’ve been meaning to post for awhile. Going forward, I’m going to try to post a collection of these each month, ideally toward the beginning of the month. Yet another New Year’s Resolution for 2025–let’s see how long it lasts. I’ve already missed January! Continue reading
“In the literature of complaint and reform, and in the endless reports from distinguished groups identifying a crisis in some element or all of higher education in America, a key defect is often the absence of practical solutions.”
–John V. Lombardi, How Universities Work, p. 31.
In an essay I posted here a few weeks ago, I argued that genocidaires seeking lower-level electoral office should be denied such offices at the ballot box. The argument was framed as a response to Jason Brennan’s account of the ethics of voting, which he describes as “the ethics of voting in political contexts.”(1) Though he doesn’t quite define “political contexts,” it’s obvious enough that he means voting in democratic elections for governmental office, e.g., for U.S. President, for legislative offices, and in some cases for judicial offices, taking U.S. electoral politics as the paradigm. Continue reading
The Selena Gomez controversy may not be your idea of a top story right now, but I think it has a certain interest to it. As you may know, Gomez took to social media to post a video of herself sobbing about the recent ICE deportations. No sooner did she do so, but she was assailed for it. She tried to explain herself, only to invite further derision, then ended up deleting both the original post and one of her later explanations.
Of particular interest to me is this riposte to Gomez from Thomas Homan, acting director of ICE during Trump’s first term, and now the White House “border czar.”
We’ve got a quarter of a million Americans dead from fentanyl coming across an open border. Where’s the tears for them?
The border isn’t “open,” and the “quarter of a million” figure is phony. But I have a pretty direct answer to Homan’s question, and have special standing to answer it: If you want tears, look elsewhere. Continue reading
A friend of mine was unceremoniously fired from Felician University in 2023–one of sixteen people fired on a single day–after 23 unrelenting years as an English comp instructor to students with an average SAT verbal score well below 500. I described her in a letter of recommendation, without exaggeration, as “the most dedicated college instructor I had ever encountered” in two+ decades in the profession. Her office was across the hall from mine, and every now and then I’d eavesdrop on her efforts. I couldn’t imagine putting even half the effort into teaching that she did. Continue reading
Been dazed and confused for so long, it’s not true…
Wanted a president, never bargained for you
–Led Zeppelin, “Dazed and Confused” (more or less)
Oh, the poor Democrats. Here’s The New York Times lamenting their fate.
Come on Dems, you can do this. Just pretend that Donald Trump is a Palestinian ER physician, and that the White House is a pediatric trauma center in Gaza. How hard could it be?
About a month ago, I described an unwelcome encounter I’d had at work with the Department of Homeland Security (ICE). Today I had one with the Israeli authorities–while sitting at a desk in Iselin, New Jersey.
A friend of mine, along with his wife and several small children, is literally going hungry in the West Bank, has had nothing to eat for days. They’ve been fully locked down since 2023: no work, no money, nowhere to go. The army is in their village every day, smashes into their house every now and then. The world a mile outside of their village is a shooting gallery where violent death lurks around every corner. The IDF told them flat out to leave now or die later. They’ve opted for “die later.” Continue reading
Policy of Truth 