The Supreme Court Completes Its Inversion of the Commerce Clause

Feature Article by , June 23, 2018

In its ruling on South Dakota v. Wayfair—basically, the ruling that means you will now have to pay goddamned sales tax on everything you buy online—the Supreme Court has completed the long arc of its interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause. It has taken a constitutional provision whose original purpose was to limit the power […]

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Science That Lives by the Narrative Can Die by the Narrative

Feature Article by , June 21, 2018

“Science” is all the rage these days, particularly among those who preen themselves as the “party of science.” We’re not just supposed to love science. We’re supposed to love it with an intensity so great, we need to drop the F-bomb to express it. We’re supposed to learn about science from popularizers who are alternately […]

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The Theory of Wokeness Relativity

Feature Article by , June 20, 2018

The problem with people who lived in the past is that they were not completely perfected in their enlightenment and progressive values, like we are. So obviously they have to be taken down a peg, and the “woke” brigade is on the job. George Washington may have been the Father of the Country, but his […]

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The High Road of Hope and Prosperity

Commentary by , June 20, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Did Monticello Just Evict Thomas Jefferson? Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, has just completed a restoration of the house’s outbuildings and slave quarters. The way the New York Times describes it, this is being used as an excuse to evict Jefferson from his own house. The […]

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One Neck, Ready for One Leash

Feature Article by , June 19, 2018

The Internet has brought us one of the greatest expansions of the free flow of information in history, so naturally government bureaucrats think this has to stop immediately. And when it comes to unaccountable bureaucrats getting their way, it’s hard to beat the European Union. Hence Wednesday’s preliminary vote on a set of EU Internet […]

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The Thatcher Line

Commentary by , June 15, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The Thatcher Line It is totally in keeping with the tone of the current political debate that the news that is actually most important is the least discussed. Here is what’s really important: we’re careening headlong past the Thatcher Line, the point at which the government runs […]

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Trump’s Diplomacy Is Just Bad Theater

Feature Article by , June 13, 2018

In their “unprecedented” one-on-one summit in Singapore, US President Donald Trump announced that he would suspend joint military operations with South Korea. In return, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un agreed to…um, er, let me check. OK, nothing. He agreed to do nothing in return. Read the “agreement” signed by Trump and Kim as the result […]

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“Why Can’t We Hate?”

Commentary by , June 11, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The Geopolitics of Resentment Donald Trump’s so-called “populism” is a euphemism for a politics that is primarily about venting your resentment, sticking a finger in somebody’s eye without really caring about any other consequences. Consider Trump’s handling of the latest G-7 Summit, which is supposed to be […]

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IT-Backed Authoritarianism

Commentary by , June 8, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. “IT-Backed Authoritarianism” If you want to know where Google’s social-engineering aspirations are headed, you don’t need to look to the future. Look to China’s “social credit system,” a merger of Western-style financial credit scores with a more nebulous and politicized measure of a citizen’s orderliness—and political loyalty. […]

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Progressives Against Enlightenment

Feature Article by , June 6, 2018

One of my concerns about the Trump era is that it signals a wave of anti-intellectualism on the right, a collapse in concern for basic ideas. It has also triggered something of an anti-intellectual response on the left, because Trump is the bogeyman who justifies blind, frenetic “resistance” in place of thoughtful criticism and reasoned […]

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