RSS
TOP NAV
BOOK
BLOGS 09
BLOGS 08
BLOGS 07
BLOGS 06
BLOGS 05
BLOGS 04
What is "Price Gouging?"
by Christopher Chantrill
YOU’D EXPECT economist Thomas Sowell to be annoyed by the concept of “price gouging.” And he is. Just what exactly is “price gouging,” anyway, he asks? The phrase is used when prices are higher than most people are used to. But there is nothing special or magic about what we happen to be used to.
When the conditions that determined the old prices change, the new prices are likely to be very different. That is unfold
Why We Don't Take Comedy Seriously
by Christopher Chantrill
BACK IN the good old days of Greek drama, the arts were properly balanced between tragedy and comedy, argues Julian Gough. Unfortunately most of the comedies were lost, and only Aristotle’s rules of tragedy were preserved in the Poetics. His rules of comedy were lost. Then along came Christianity with an overbalance towards the tragic view of life. So western culture since the middle ages has overvalued unfold
Iran Tottering on the Edge
by Christopher Chantrill
HOW BAD are things in Iran? It’s hard to know. Our international media are good at showing us made-for-TV bombs in Baghdad, but not very good at peering under the blankets of thug-dictator regimes like Ahmaninejad’s. According to Spengler, things are in very bad shape. Inflation is 20 percent, monetary expansion 40 percent, and it is beginning to look as if the regime is faking its economic statistics. Then there is employment, or lack unfold
We Are All in It Together, Clinton Says:
by Christopher Chantrill
PRESIDENTIAL candidate Hillary Clinton says that the Bush “ownership society” is really an “on-your-own” society, according to Holly Ramer "I prefer a ’we’re all in it together’ society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none." That means pairing growth with fairness, she said. One of the interesting unfold
GOP Tide in Full Ebb
by Christopher Chantrill
DON’T LOOK now, writes David Frum, but the party of Ronald Reagan is heading into “a horrible Republican defeat in 2008.” And it’s not going to do any good to invoke the Gipper this time around. Ronald Reagan was elected at a time when every social indicator seemed to be moving in the wrong direction: crime up, abortion up, divorce up, welfare dependency up, test scores down. Reagan-era politics unfold
Marriage in America: It's a Class Thing
by Christopher Chantrill
AS THE JUNE WEDDING season swings around The Economist(sub) is taking a look at marriage in America, keying off Kay Hymowitz’s Marriage and Caste in America. What do they find? There is a widening gulf between how the best- and least-educated Americans approach marriage and child-rearing. They have a handy little graph which shows the percentage of children living with single parents since 1964. It unfold
Down the Memory Hole
by Christopher Chantrill
LAST FALL John J. Miller observed that military history is dying out in our nation’s universities. There are still a few old codgers left, aging professors close to retirement, but they aren’t being replaced. On this Memorial Day Rich Lowry adds his two cents worth.
Peggy Noonan Against Senate Bill
by Christopher Chantrill
IT’S ONE thing for your normal right-wing knuckle-dragging yahoos like you and me to be against the Senate Immigration Bill. But Peggy Noonan? Naturally I hope the new immigration bill fails. It is less a bill than a big dirty ball of mischief, malfeasance and mendacity, with a touch of class malice, and it’s being pushed by a White House that is at once cynical and inept. The bill’s Capitol Hill supporters have a great vain popinjay’s pride in unfold
Evangelicals Enter Establishment
by Christopher Chantrill
LBERAL RELIGION REPORTER Hanna Rosin is one of our favorites here at Road to the Middle Class. Not because she is a liberal but because she gets out and reports on conservative Christians in America. She doesn’t really like them but she does a professional reporting job on them. Now she’s taking a look at evangelical lawyers like Laura Goodling, the former Justice Department official who testified on Capitol Hill this unfold
Immigration Numbers
by Christopher Chantrill
SUPPLY-SIDER Alan Reynolds has had it with all the rhetoric on immigration. Says he: Rational discussion of the Senate immigration bill is being stifled and befuddled by a few misused words and phrases that generate irrational anger and very little understanding. So he comes up with the numbers. And they are pretty impressive.
"Hook-up" Culture: Girls Still Confused
by Christopher Chantrill
YOU CAN see what a job that feminists have done on our young college women. When it comes to the hook-up culture they can barely articulate the idea that it is tearing them to bits, as Ashley Herzog illustrates in this quote from an Ohio University co-ed freshman: I think for guys, it’s a lot about hooking up; for girls it’s more of an emotional thing. Maybe the guy will call you; maybe he’ll just say ‘hi’ on the street. unfold
The Unenforced Immigration Laws
by Christopher Chantrill
NO DOUBT, as our political leaders insist, there is a major immigration problem that requires an immigration amnesty law to be rushed through Congress. It’s a pity that we don’t care to enforce the laws already on the books, writes Mark Krikorian: Let’s look at a few of the initiatives already on the books that have languished in bureaucratic or political purgatory rather than getting done: First of all, of course, unfold
Committing Politics in Britain
by Christopher Chantrill
HERE IN the United States our leaders are busy rushing a immigration amnesty bill to the president’s desk before the voters notice and get mobilized against it. The last thing they want is an open discussion of the issues. But in Britain Conservative Party leader David Cameron is having an open discussion of education policy with his Tory Party rank-and-file. In an op-ed in the London Times he writes:
The Immigration Bill and the Big Picture
by Christopher Chantrill
IT is, as writes, an outrage when the governing classes try to rush a major revision of the nation’s immigration law past the voters and past their legislators without what our liberal friends call “a national conversation.” He has thoughtfully provided a critique of the Senate bill as it became available over the weekend. Today he has listed a number of proposed
How Much Does the Elite Know?
by Christopher Chantrill
THE GREAT presumption of the twentieth century was that an educated elite capable of “rational, factual, socialist argument” was much better way at running the country than the higgling and the chaos of the market. So it wrong to suggest, Thomas Sowell writes, that either economic interests rule (Marx) or that ideas rule (Keynes). My own view is that differences in bedrock assumptions underlying unfold
Who Needs School Anyway?
by Christopher Chantrill
PITY POOR MARILEE Jones, formerly Dean of Admissions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She figured she needed a bushel of degrees to work at MIT so she faked ’em, according to James Taranto. Fortunately, Taranto only works for The Wall Street Journal edit page. So he doesn’t need all those sheepskins. I feel her pain, for school never agreed with me. I repeatedly found myself in conflict with teachers and professors. unfold
Dems Can't Break the Habit
by Christopher Chantrill
DESPITE their promise of moderation and transparency last November the Democrats can’t break the habit of taxing and spending, reports Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The budget resolution passed by the Democratic Congress this month “provides a framework for tax hikes a full three times larger” than the tax increase that did for the last Democratic Congress 14 years ago in 1993. This budget unfold
Iraq: After the Americans Leave
by Christopher Chantrill
CONSERVATIVES think that when the United States leaves Iraq that all hell will break loose, and maybe it will. But this article from StrategyPage shows that behind all the bombs and explosions there is a slow motion civil war and sorting out process going on. Several years of having a Shia majority running the country has instilled a confidence in the Shia community that has not been felt in generations. Of course there’s the question unfold
Who Defeated the Soviet Union?
by Christopher Chantrill
IN HINDSIGHT, everyone knew that the Soviet Union was bound to collapse. Conservatives knew that it was the firmness of Ronald Reagan. Liberals suddenly discovered that the Soviet Union was bound to collapse anyway—although they had cleverly avoided telling anyone before 1991. But Yegor Gaidar in his book, The Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia, has a different take. It all started when the unfold
Jerry Falwell and Enthusiastic Christianity
by Christopher Chantrill
WHAT ARE we to say about Jerry Falwell, the fundamentalist Christian pastor who founded the Moral Majority? Was he a moral hero, pushing back against a culture of immorality? Or was he a hate-filled bigot? For a lot of heat, but not much light, you can read the comments section after a recollection of Falwell by R. Albert Mohler Jr. here. The facts of Falwell’s life, as reported unfold
Entrepreneurs and Media Dinosaurs
by Christopher Chantrill
TALK-SHOW host Hugh Hewitt is proabably as good and energetic an interviewer as you’ll get to hear. He can disembowel a pompous MSMer as quick as a Mexican immigrant can dress a chicken in a meat-packing plant. But he’s also good at interviewing to bring his interviewee out, as in this radio interview with Michael S. Malone, author of Bill and Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest unfold
Riling Up the Republican Base
by Christopher Chantrill
THE ART of politics is to divide up the electorate neatly into 51-49, with 51 percent for our side. You want to fire up your base, encourage moderatew with your message of hope, and put the other base to sleep. But Democrats seem to be working hard to fire up the Republican base. First of all, The Prowler reports, the Democrats are planning to reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine that requires “both sides” of an issue to be unfold
Let's Throw Good Money After Bad
by Christopher Chantrill
YES. Give us a billion here and a billion there and we could really solve the high-school dropout problem. That’s about what Education Secretary Spellings is proposing, according to Donald Lambro. Back in the 1960s President Kennedy pointed out that four in ten youngsters did not finish high school. "Forty-four years later, the dropout rate for African-American, Hispanic and Native American students approaches 50 percent. unfold
Traditional values down, but not out
by Christopher Chantrill
SOME POLITICAL actors believe that the Democratic capture of Congress in 2006 represents the end of the traditional values movement in America, reports Cheryl Welzstein. "Huge numbers of religiously observant Americans voted for Democrats, reversing a 14-year trend," according to the liberal People for the American Way (PFAW). "There are hugely hopeful signs that the pendulum in American public life is swinging back from the far-right unfold
Global Guerrillas for Breakfast
by Christopher Chantrill
ALERTED by the trend-spotting Instapundit to the new book by John Robb Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization I naturally proceeded to the blog by BNW author John Robb. Right now he’s taking a look at the Fort Dix six. We will see this again and again. One reason is that in open source warfare, the barriers to entry are nearly zero. Anyone can participate. All you need to do in unfold
Married Mothers Day
by Christopher Chantrill
WHY IS IT that liberals have made a world with their welfare state in which single mothers are subsidized and married mothers are penalized? It’s something to think about this Mothers Day. The fact is that married mothers are essential, writes sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox. [M]arried mothers serve our nation’s neighborhoods, children, and even themselves better than any of the dizzying array of unfold
A Decade of Blair
by Christopher Chantrill
FIRST THE good news. The ten years of Tony Blair have been the most successful for a left-of-center party in Britain ever. Well, at least since W.E. Gladstone, the Liberal Prime Minister in the nineteenth century. As Prime Minister Blair told his constituents today, according to George Jones: He said expectations had probably been "too high" in 1997, but he unfold
Iran and the Chimera of "Self-Sufficiency"
by Christopher Chantrill
EVER SINCE the dawn of the modern age movements have erupted again and again calling for a return to “self-sufficiency.” That’s what mercantilism was all about. That’s what socialism is all about. And that is what the current regime in Iran is all about. We don’t need no stink’n trading. We can make it all here ourselves. So in Iran, Amir Taheri writes: Mr. Ahmadinejad insists that the only way Iran can preserve its unfold
For Dionne It's All About Compulsion
by Christopher Chantrill
THINGS DON’T look too good out there for people like us, writes E.J. Dionne, Jr. in the aftermath of the French election. What with France, Labour’s problems in Britain, Sweden, Canada (land of single-payer health care), and Germany, social democrats are in retreat. In the light of all this the social democratic and liberal left faces a big problem because globalization makes the movement’s core pledge — unfold
Democrats Still Opposed to Missile Defense
by Christopher Chantrill
FOR FORTY years after World War II the defenses of the United States were aligned to “contain” the Soviet Union. Most of the time Democrats had to be dragged along kicking and screaming to contribute to the effort. Not surprisingly, the Soviet Union did not appreciate this. To them, the United States was engaged in a strategy of encirclement. Of course, they were right. But since 9/11 the United States has switched its front. The front is no longer aligned along the borders of the Soviet unfold
Netroots: On Chait in TNR
by Christopher Chantrill
HERE IS how the netroots experience their birth in the aftermath of the contested 2000 election in Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and Jerome Armstrong’s book, Crashing the Gate: Five years ago, the Republicans took over the government through nondemocratic means. Establishment Democrats, for the most part, stood back and watched as a partisan judicial body halted the counting of presidential votes. While conservative activists led the charge on behalf of their party, there was nothing happening on our side. That unfold
Center-right Sarkozy Wins In France
by Christopher Chantrill
BECAUSE the left has liked to represent Nicolas Sarkozy, the next president of France as “fascist” and “right-wing”it is important to state that Sarkozy is a conventional center-right politician. Sarkozy believes that the science is in on the economy, that capitalism and limited-liability companies work for the average person, and especially for the marginalized. That’s about what everyone on the center-right believes. Sarkozy thinks that there ought to be sensible control on immigration and that immigrants unfold
Don't Frighten the Horses
by Christopher Chantrill
ANALYZING the British local elections of last week Charles Moore conducts a seminar in the politics of the twenty-first century. He is talking about the consequence of the ascendancy of New Labour under Tony Blair, but everything he says applies to our own Democratic Party. The brilliance of Tony Blair is that—even though schools don’t educate and government health care doesn’t work and the nation is overrun with unfold
Tories Advance in Brit Local Elections
by Christopher Chantrill
BRITAIN’S Conservative Party oustripped forecasts of 600-700 by gaining over 875 seats in the British local council elections. As the BBC put it: It may not have been the surge many had been hoping for, but Mr Cameron has always stressed the party has an electoral mountain to climb if it is to win the next general election and, with around 800 seats gained, it outstripped its forecasts. But the goal of the Tories was to unfold
After the Debate: Romney
by Christopher Chantrill
YOU COULD say that the reason I’m a Romney guy is because of the unrelenting Romney-boosting on the Hugh Hewitt radio show. Hugh has his book A Mormon in the White House to promote shamelessly and so it’s been Romney, Romney, Romney now for weeks. Still I couldn’t help but notice the centerpiece of Mitt’s campaign. In China they would call it the Three Strongs.
The Heart of the Education Problem
by Christopher Chantrill
IN BRITLAND they have recently discovered that social mobility is going down not up. As Anne McElvoy writes in The Spectator: [Children] born in 1970 are more likely to have ended up poor themselves than the children born in 1958. There is no sign that the trend has changed. So guess what: more central government education programs are needed. You see, back unfold
"Make No Mistake"
by Christopher Chantrill
AFTER PRESIDENT Bush vetoed the Democrats’ emergency war funding bill everyone got together at the White House to discuss what to next, reports the Chicago Tribune: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the meeting “positive.” held in “good faith.” Her Republican counterpart, Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, called it “very productive,” reporting no tense moments. But they hardly decided what the outlines of a new bill unfold
GM to Advertise on Limbaugh Show
by Christopher Chantrill
THIS YEAR on August 1 talk radio will be 19 years old. It started with Rush Limbaugh and the end of the old FCC Fairness Doctrine that mandated “balance” in political opinion on the airwaves. Tomorrow, Rush Limbaugh announced on his show today, he will not be performing his assigned host duties flawlessly. He will not be performing them at all. Instead he will be in Detroit talking to his new sponsor General Motors. Conservatives will understand that this is an epic event. Let us spell it unfold
Romney: You Make the Call
by Christopher Chantrill
THE AP RECENTLY reported that Mitt Romney didn’t think it was that important to go after Osama bin Laden. Here’s the quote from the AP article by Liz Sidoti: [Romney] said the country would be safer by only "a small percentage" and would see "a very insignificant increase in safety" if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. "It’s not worth moving heaven unfold
"Eurostar Generation" Threatens Euro Social Model
by Christopher Chantrill
THEY CALL them the “Eurostar Generation.” They are the young French professionals who have bought one-way tickets on the Eurostar train from Paris to London. And when they get to London they are often amazed at how quickly they can find jobs. Politicians are noticing, as Anne Applebaum reports. The highlight of the current unfold
Racial Discrimination
[T]he way “to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis,”
Brown II, 349 U. S., at 300–301, is to stop assigning students on a racial basis. The way to stop
discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
Roberts, C.J., Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District
Churches
[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm
Sacrifice
[Every] sacrifice is an act of impurity that pays for a prior act of greater impurity... without its participants having to suffer the full consequences incurred by its predecessor. The punishment is commuted in a process that strangely combines and finesses the deep contradiction between justice and mercy.
Frederick Turner, Beauty: The Value of Values
Pentecostalism
Within Pentecostalism the injurious hierarchies of the wider world are abrogated and replaced by a single hierarchy of faith, grace, and the empowerments of the spirit... where groups gather on rafts to take them through the turbulence of the great journey from extensive rural networks to the mega-city and the nuclear family...
David Martin, On Secularization
Conservatism's Holy Grail
What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph
Moral Imperatives of Modern Culture
These emerge out of long-standing moral notions of freedom, benevolence, and the affirmation of ordinary life... I have been sketching a schematic map... [of] the moral sources [of these notions]... the original theistic grounding for these standards... a naturalism of disengaged reason, which in our day takes scientistic forms, and a third family of views which finds its sources in Romantic expressivism, or in one of the modernist successor visions.
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self
Drang nach Osten
There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion
Government Expenditure
The Union publishes an exact return of the amount of its taxes; I can get copies of the budgets of the four and twenty component states; but who can tell me what the citizens spend in the administration of county and township?
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Living Law
The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital
German Philosophy
The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since
1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and
philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be
inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West
Action
The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness...
But to make a man act [he must have]
the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove
or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action
Holy Families
Revelations cannot be sustained and transformed into successful new religions by lonely prophets... Indeed, new religious movements based on revelations typically are family affairs.
Rodney Stark, Exploring the Religious Life
mysql close 0