Blog Posts

You’ve seen the videos and you are shocked. Tyre Nichols was stopped by Memphis police officers, dragged from his car, and savagely beaten by police officers. When he fled, they chased him. He was hunted down, beaten some more as he screamed nightmarishly for his mother, and then...

Rhetorical choices define our options in life. What you see conceptually is, in a sense, what you can aim at in terms of strategic behavioral choices. And so, in this era of so-called “Critical Race Theory,” I say we lay bare the choices the theorists are making. It’s...

The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s decision to vacate the conviction of Bill Cosby and discharge him is a stunning rebuke of the prosecution. Not only is his conviction reversed; the Commonwealth cannot try him again for the sexual assault of Andrea...

It was obvious to me one year ago that the pandemic would yield a time of extraordinary social tumult. Indeed, just over one year ago, I wrote in these pages about the general strike theory of the pandemic, how the viral contagion would be turned into an occasion to try to recast the...

I wrote this almost a year ago. Friends thought I was howling at the moon. Now they think I was prophetic. Spread the word. We need to amend the federal Constitution to prevent race-based transfer payments and distribution of public goods. It was written as I watched the hullabaloo arising...

Libertarianism and individualism generally run hand-in-hand with a robust view of property rights. If the state is an artifice, then aren’t limitations on how much property individuals can acquire arbitrary and therefore suspect? Individualism and limited government are fast...

I have a confession to make: I never watched the television series “Roots,” nor have I read the Alex Hailey novel “Roots: The Saga of An American Family,” on which it was based. This despite the fact that the television series took the nation by storm in the late...

Evanston, Illinois is a university town, so I expect a certain amount of irresponsible silliness to emerge from its town hall. But using a sales tax on marijuana to fund reparations payments to black town residents is something even Kurt Vonnegut would have a hard time selling as fiction.
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Legitimacy, the near magical property that distinguishes the use of naked power from lawful authority, is conferred upon the state in three ways, the German sociologist Max Weber taught a century ago. There is tradition, of a sense of authority derived ancient custom and usages; think of...

It’s an open question in my mind whether Donald J. Trump committed a high crime or misdemeanor justifying impeachment. Were he a private citizen, I would say there is no question his speech on January 6, 2021, was protected. He no more incited a riot than do cheerleaders at a pep...