Keyword: arnoldkling
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Even academic departments famous for having a “character” are far from intellectually homogenous, but they do suggest certain family resemblances. George Mason University’s economics department is populated by many libertarians, but libertarianism is not its most salient feature. In speaking with several members of the department, I searched for le mot juste: “Freakonomics”? “Weird economics”? “Interesting economics” turned out to be the least inaccurate term for a sub-discipline that encompasses such questions as whether bounty hunters are (and pirates were) as violent as is commonly supposed, how best to survive torture, and whether one ought to pay to have one’s...
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If the United States is exceptional because of our entrepreneurial culture, then our natural allies may not be in Continental Europe, in spite of its democratic governments and high levels of economic development. Instead, we may have more in common with other nations of the Anglosphere, as well as such entrepreneurial outposts as India, Israel, and Singapore. "The movement that built the first national democracy was not triggered by an uprising of the masses; nor was it led by intellectual theorists. It was led by entrepreneurial men of means...In fact, starting a business develops precisely the traits that make...
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I am not a pollster, but my sense is that there has been a shift in the popular mood in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel as a result of events this summer in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and London. I suspect that this is one of those eras where the political elites are out of touch with mass opinion. In this case, I think that the elites are mostly wrong, and I hope that they adjust. Regarding the "mutiny" of the British airplane passengers, no doubt the elites are thinking, "Oh, what awful behavior on the part of...
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I am not a pollster, but my sense is that there has been a shift in the popular mood in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel as a result of events this summer in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and London. I suspect that this is one of those eras where the political elites are out of touch with mass opinion. In this case, I think that the elites are mostly wrong, and I hope that they adjust. "British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny -- refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists...
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1. Do you believe that bringing children into the world is a very serious responsibility for the parents? Taking parental responsibility seriously starts before children are born. It requires self-discipline in sexual behavior. It requires achieving emotional maturity, the ability to make a living, and a solid marriage before having children. After children are born, you have to spend money, time, physical effort, and emotional energy on them. You have to recognize that your marriage now has a higher purpose. Most of my friends who have a liberal political persuasion meet these expectations for parents about as well as they...
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"...with any luck the 2008 Presidential campaign will be the first since September 11 to move beyond the 'stolen election' of 2000 and openly debate what course we should follow in the long war ahead. It's a debate that will touch on everything: military preparedness, our core beliefs, demography and the structure of civilization itself because we have finally come to accept that in the end nothing will be the same in the way that it was." -- The Belmont Club I wish I could be confident that both parties will nominate candidates with a serious outlook on the war...
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"To remain competitive in the global economy, the United States needs to improve the education and skills of its residents and prepare them for jobs that will be available in the future." -- Economic Report of the President 2006, Chapter Two The rhetoric of economic nationalism is scattered throughout this year's Economic Report of the President, and it pervades policy discussions among politicians and in the press. It comes so naturally that we hardly even notice it -- I'm sure I've slipped into it myself. So it's important to point out how unnatural it really is. As I write this,...
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The views of important thinkers become distilled into folk beliefs that shape our societies. John Locke and Karl Marx are two thinkers whose enormous influence can be described using this model. "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute" -- Maureen Dowd, the New York TimesMaureen Dowd's statement is Marxist. No, she did not advocate revolution by the proletariat. She did not say that we ought to have a Communist state. But her famous remark that someone in a particular class of victims has "absolute" moral authority is derived from "folk Marxism," as will...
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Recently, Commentary magazine put together a fascinating symposium on the Bush Doctrine, which includes the use of pre-emptive attacks and the strategy of bringing democracy to the Middle East. I strongly recommend reading the symposium, as well as other recent thoughtful pieces by Francis Fukuyama, Theodore Dalrymple, and others cited in the blogs Winds of Change and Belmont Club. Commentary's editors kicked off the symposium with a number questions about the Bush Doctrine. Participants were asked to comment on the doctrine and its implementation to date. I am skeptical of the Bush doctrine. However, I want to be clear from...
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Arnold Kling looks at alternatives to economic motivation... and the basis of academic life. Among whites, higher grades yield higher popularity. For Blacks, higher achievement is associated with modestly higher popularity until a grade point average of 3.5, when the slope turns negative. A black student with a 4.0 has, on average, 1.5 fewer same-race friends than a white student with a 4.0. Among Hispanics, there is little change in popularity from a grade point average of 1 through 2.5. After 2.5, the gradient turns sharply negative. A Hispanic student with a 4.0 grade point average is the...
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"We ran a good campaign against a bad president, and we still got beat." -- Bruce Reed, president of the Democratic Leadership Council If the Democrats ran a good campaign, then I suggest that their definition of a campaign could be borrowed from The Devil's Dictionary . With apologies to Ambrose Bierce, I would say that definition is this: Presidential Campaign (n) - A process, starting about eighteen months prior to the election, by which the Democratic Party manages to alienate enough voters to hand victory to the other party. Reed and others suggest that the key to turning around...
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Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter used the term 'barrel with a bottom' recently when he said that, contrary to popular opinion and military convention, terrorism is not an endless pit, but that there is a limited supply of terrorists and murderers. [Aharon] Ze'evi, on the other hand, believes terrorism is a spring that continuously wells up." -- Jerusalem Post This recent controversy in Israel concerned whether the metaphor of a barrel or a spring best describes the phenomenon of terrorism. The two metaphors have very different implications for assessing Israel's security situation. For the Islamist terrorist threat to the...
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"But the enemy is not just 'terrorism,' some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism -- especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology."9-11 Commission Report, p. 379 This paragraph from the 9/11 Commission Report should come as no surprise to TCS readers. It reinforces what many of my fellow columnists have been writing about the need to face squarely the role of Islamist ideology in the terrorist threat.Unfortunately, the recommendations from the Commission do not constitute a...
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"Political debate began to decline around the turn of the century [1900], curiously enough at a time when the press was becoming more 'responsible,' more professional, more conscious of its civic obligations." – Chistopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites, chapter 9 ("The Lost Art of Argument") In Iraq, today's militia fights, terrorist attacks, and occasional outbreaks of mob violence are significant because they take place in the context of two larger wars. One is the war between the civilized world and radical Islam. The other is the war between the media elite and conservatives. However things turn out in...
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Tim Russert: But can you launch a preemptive war without iron clad, absolute intelligence that he had weapons of mass destruction? President Bush: Let me take a step back for a second and there is no such thing necessarily in a dictatorial regime of iron clad absolutely solid evidence." -- Meet the Press, February 8, 2004 I enjoy teaching statistics in high school even more than I enjoy teaching economics. Part of the reason is that the Advanced Placement exam in statistics is so much better than the exam in economics. You can pass the economics AP just by memorizing...
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