I’m a director. The job is despotic. You’re the boss of the production. You play god, the designer of the film/commercial/music video’s universe. When you’re good at it, as James Cameron or Oliver Stone or Woody Allen is, you create a window into a rich world that connects with people on an emotion, empathetic level. The ...
A thoughtful and clearly well studied user that goes by “VA Classical Liberal” over at the Daily Kos has produced an utterly splendid expansion and explanation of “Fear the Boom and Bust” that should be required reading for anyone interested in the video and the ideas contained therein. After a first read ...
It’s the beginning of a new decade. I thought I’d kick it off with this awesome video, which underscores how unbelievably dynamic our society and economy really is. There is a heaping helping of two free-market thinkers in this video: F A ...
This quote from John Stossel’s latest defense of the filibuster is tremendous and a great one to send off this past decade and to consider as we welcome in a new one: There is no greater threat to individual freedom and autonomy than government. The threat from private freelance crime is small potatoes compared to ...
“All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again” This prophetic phrase is featured in the opening of Peter Pan, and is a consistent theme throughout one of the best Sci-Fi shows of all time, Battlestar Galactica. It’s also an astute observation about the ideological debates that run throughout human history. On ...
The Cato Institute’s David Boaz has an excellent article about the “brain-dead conservative” movement. It’s a worthwhile read. Here’s the best two quotes in the piece from (and about) a personal intellectual hero, Friedrich A. Hayek. Hayek insisted that he was not a conservative: "Conservatism, though a necessary element ...
John Stossel has a sure-to-be controversial post about the intentions vs. the realities of our First Lady on "public service", "sacrifice" and the private sector: In her speech to the Democratic Convention, Michelle Obama said she’d sacrificed a lucrative career in order to serve her country. “In my own life, in my own small ...
In the face of our current political and economic upheaval where both parties have supported bailouts and payoffs and foreign adventuring with our armed forces, I've come to believe that classical liberalism / libertarianism has a genuine chance to go mainstream politically. Why? Because I believe that the classical liberal tradition is logically consistent, ethically sound ...
No, I don't mean wealthy urban intellectuals. I mean Cosmo the magazine, whose June issue lists "Keynesian" among the terms needed to "Be Brilliant at Small Talk". Flip right to page 151 for an small talk treasure trove of ideology. As you can see, the ...
Very little. And by that I mean that I know very little ABOUT the scientific foundations of the "social sciences" and know OF very little that is actually scientific in the "social sciences". The social sciences, including and especially economics, certainly can present the appearance of scientific methodology complete with empirical data collection, statistics and ...
