The Unbroken Window

I was in high school when they came around our neighborhood casting for A Bronx Tale. At the time my favorite scene in the movie was this one:   I tend to view my students like these characters think about “the great ones.” There are indeed only a few. And precious few they are. We will say [...]

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As I grow crankier, I am seeing myself disagreeing more with the thoughtful left. I am somewhat surprised by this as I had always assumed the opposite would happen. For today’s edition let me excerpt from a lefty website that I quite enjoy reading despite its regular ad-hominem bashing and mischaracterization of views different than [...]

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Vassar, Bowdoin, Rochester, … There is no difference. The end of liberal education — Part One, the Vassar experience 100 Power Line / by Paul Mirengoff / 8 hours ago (Paul Mirengoff) Have left-liberals killed liberal education? I’ve come to think so, and recent developments at Vassar and Bowdoin help confirm my fear. The indispensable [...]

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I honestly do not believe so. Do I want them to be able to be friends? Of course. The worldview of a modern liberal is predicated on violating private property rights while the worldview of the classical liberal is dedicated to understanding the limits of the private sphere and then respecting what happens to be [...]

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The walls of our campus rumble and resonate with claims to the moral imperative of health care as a human right. Let’s not take the time today to discuss whether or not this is a “correct” view to hold or is in fact compatible with other views folks hold, rather, let’s play on “their” turf [...]

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Stupid is as stupid does? Or what about what we say? In the most recent survey reported by the AP, it turns out that people really favor increasing spending on all kinds of things by the government. Of course, no one bothers to ask whose money is being spent and they certainly aren’t being asked, “given your [...]

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“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” Thus says the great physicist Richard Feynman. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around both the rhetoric and sentiments of the “Progressives” that live around us. And I do think I am onto something. I’ve talked [...]

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Jim Buchanan has passed away. Here is Don Boudreaux’s short appreciation. James M. Buchanan, who died Wednesday at age 93, was one of history’s greatest economists. Though he won the Nobel Prize in 1986, Jim at heart was always a farm boy from Tennessee—an old-fashioned, hardworking American who disdained unearned privileges as well as deeply [...]

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I wished I could say that I was more of a poetry fan than I am – I’ve never had a lengthy and exciting enough exposure to it to appreciate it. But for today’s post I leave you with one of my favorites nonetheless. It is Milton’s Sonnet XII. It is not entirely unrelated to [...]

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They seem more depressed than I am. My thoughts coming soon. But this’ll surely cheer you up on this snowy cold night … There are many factors, Mrs. B. theorizes. A world of kids with lousy job opportunities, higher taxes, decreasing incomes, the horrors of Newtown, unemployment, the election, etc.   She is quite shrewd about politics. From a [...]

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