February 16, 2014
The Long-Term State of the Union – Counting the Cost of Empire?
There is something desperate about the current quality of politics in Washington DC. It is not that our elected representatives steadily avoid any discussion of key issues. It is rather that – on far too many occasions – the way in which they choose to discuss those key issues trivializes them to the […] read more »
January 24, 2014
In Defense of the NHS
There has been a lot of talk and writing lately, by Cal Thomas and others uneasy with Obamacare, about the lessons that we can and should draw from what they characterize as the failure of socialized medicine in the U.K. In doing so, the picture they draw of health care in the U.K. […] read more »
December 30, 2013
New Year Reflections: The Character of the Task before Us
The start of a new year is always a good moment for reflection on the nature of our present condition. It is an even better moment for the adoption of resolutions designed to improve that condition. So perhaps we should try both. read more »
November 13, 2013
Negative Freedom or Positive Freedom: Time to Choose?
In the seemingly never-ending battle over the scope of government in America – on issues from gun control and climate change to federal spending and the Affordable Care Act – opponents of active government regularly mix detailed criticism of immediate policy consequences with more general arguments about the erosion of basic freedoms. read more »
October 26, 2013
Advice to Progressives in a Conservative State
The Governor of North Carolina is becoming quite a megastar in conservative circles these days. He was a welcome addition to the gubernatorial campaign of Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia last Thursday, when he was fresh back from an address to the prestigious Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. The Heritage Foundation hailed Pat McCrory as […] read more »
October 9, 2013
Placing the Affordable Care Act in the Wider Debate on Healthcare Systems
Right now, hysteria inside the Republican Party about the flaws of the Affordable Care Act is running very high indeed. So high in fact that Representative Todd Rokita (R-IN) was not treated as mentally insane by his party’s leadership last week for denouncing Obamacare as “one of the most insidious laws ever devised.”[1] […] read more »
October 1, 2013
Exactly how is the Affordable Care Act an affront to freedom?
In all the understandable cacophony about the shutdown of government, the underlying trigger to that shutdown – Tea Party opposition to the Affordable Care Act – is in danger of falling out of the public spotlight. But that must not happen. The government is being shut down for a reason, and we need to examine […] read more »
September 17, 2013
The Half-Forgotten Student Debt Crisis
The debt ceiling debate is poised to return to the center-stage of American domestic politics. The Bipartisan Policy Center anticipates that the U.S. Treasury will hit the current debt ceiling sometime between October 18 and November 5, read more »
August 30, 2013
Back to Basics on the Question of Labor
As we prepare to celebrate another Labor Day, we do well to remember that celebrating labor on just one day always runs the risk of implying that every other day is not a labor day. Celebratory days can invite tokenism as equally as they can generate empathy. Celebrating the fact of labor can so easily […] read more »
