My favorite political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, seems to have a blind spot about the character of bureaucrats and public employees, failing to see that they are just as ‘patrimonial’, a word he uses a lot, as any other interest group. […]
Politics
Things You Don’t Have to be a Libertarian to Believe
Libertarians have much to contribute to the discussions of social justice. But their main contributions – rule of law, opposition to cronyism, ‘by right’ land use, the problem of planning and knowledge, the issue of ‘public choice’ or how we […]
Should Transit-Oriented Housing be Limited to the Carless?
In addition to the NIMBYs and the YIMBYs, we now have the PHIMBYs: Public Housing in My Back Yard. This new acronym represents those who believe that public-subsidized housing should be added to our cities, but no private enterprise market-rate […]
On Political Trust and Media Attention
For a long time, we have spoken of elections, in which a President is not on the ballot, as ‘off-year elections’. I think the Founders would have been horrified by such a notion. The Congress, they would have thought, should […]
Romans 14 and the Political Divisions of the Church
We live in a time when the classical Protestant church [and, less openly, the Catholics and Orthodox] is often divided over political issues – especially over the character of the current President of the United States. We have Trumpite churches […]
Proposition 47 and the $950 Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card
Proposition 47, which was adopted by Californians in 2014, has been described as a ballot initiative with ‘unintended results galore‘. It was based on a laudable desire to reduce the number of people in California’s overcrowded prisons who don’t necessarily, […]
Trump’s One Moral Conviction: The Deal
It’s often said that our President, Donald Trump, is a man of no moral convictions – except for those related to his own power and ego. I would quite agree that he seems to have no religion or philosophy. But […]
A Response to Philip Hamburger on the “Administrative Threat”
As a paddleboarder, I have supported an organization called FREESUP SoCal; it is, frankly, an advocacy organization. We advocate for an open, data-driven process at the local, state, and federal level on regulation of life jacket wear for stand up paddleboarding […]
The Politics, or a-Politics, of the Evangelical Church in the 1970s
I came to Christ in 1973, at the high tide of the Jesus movement. No, we weren’t all hippies; the movement swept through secular colleges [even fraternities!] and youth groups as well. It is worth pointing out that my [deservedly […]
I Became a “Decline to State”
Nine years ago I became a nominal Democrat, a DINO [Democrat in name only] as I called it. I did so because it seemed to me at the time that the Republican party was being taken over by a group […]