June 16, 2011
Summer Reading
I’m reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. I had never read anything by her. The references I had were mixed: praise by some libertarians; condemnation by others; Nozick’s piece “On the…
June 15, 2011
Reason as Weapon?
Interesting article in the NY Times about the so-called “argumentative theory of reasoning.” The claim, in a nutshell, seems to be that reason developed evolutionarily in order to allow us…
June 14, 2011
The Kochs, Again
I think James did an excellent job here dealing with controversy about the Koch’s and have little to add. But today I saw this on Huffington Post, of all places. It…
June 08, 2011
Prison Break
Fernando suggests (below) that rather than complaining that “the incarceration rate in America is too high,” we should complain instead that “America punishes innocent persons” (e.g. drug users). Certainly the…
June 08, 2011
Judging States
One way to define liberalism, as I have previously indicated here is by reference to the normative principles of toleration it is committed to (as I suggested in that previous…
June 07, 2011
A Puzzle
Like many others, I am alarmed at the rate of incarceration in the United States (Reason magazine has devoted a whole issue to the problem). I also agree that the…