Israel’s War on Interracial Marriage

Ugh: The Israeli government has launched a television and Internet advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews. The advertisements, employing what the Israeli media described as “scare tactics,” are designed to stop assimilation through intermarriage among young Diaspora Jews by encouraging their [...]

Sinead’s Hand

Democracy, you’ve got some splaining to do!

Individual Rights: Minority Imposing its Views on Majority

This from Jesse Reynolds at Biopolitical Times (repsonding to this from Ron Bailey) is one of the more stupid democratic totalitarian arguments I’ve heard (and yes, it does mention the Peter “The Root of All Evil” Thiel): Public opinion surveys show that an overwhelming 85 to 90 percent of Americans are opposed to human reproductive [...]

Quote of the Day: Liberal Archipelago Edition

The metaphor offered here to supplant those already described [i.e. the 'body politic' and 'ship of state'] is one which pictures political society as an archipelago: an area of sea containing many small islands. The islands in question, here, are different communities or. better still, jurisdictions, operating in a sea of mutual toleration. Political society [...]

Quote of the Day: Bigotry and Utilitarianism Edition

There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings; as a religious bigot when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his feelings, by persisting in their abominable [...]

Quote of the Day: Liberal Tolerance Edition

This type of tolerance does not mean wishy-washiness or the propensity to doubt one’s own position, the sort of thing Robert Frost had in mind when he defined a liberal as someone who cannot take his own side in an argument. It does not imply, or require, an easy relativism about the human good; indeed, [...]

Mastery and Spontaneous Order

On this week’s Econtalk Russ Roberts talks to Political Scientist/Theorist Alan Wolfe about liberalism (of the modern American variety, including its relationship to libertarianism). The conversation is interesting throughout. Wolfe is very concerned with the individual’s mastery of their own life: the positive liberty to act on the world and to determine their own destiny. [...]

Libertarianism and Democracy

Will Wilkinson has a fantastic post on the anti-democratic tendencies of libertarians. Will says many things I agree with, and some I disagree with. Which brings us to Theil’s boneheaded quip about women’s suffrage. Extending the franchise to women is, in my estimation, one of the great triumphs of the American classical liberal tradition. Like [...]

Ronald Bailey on Transhumanism and the Limits of Democracy

Reason reproduces the paper Bailey presented at Arizona State University’s Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict Workshop on Transhumanism and the Future of Democracy. The paper is too good to extract, and I would urge anyone at all interested in this stuff to read the whole thing, but here’s one part which makes the point I’ve been [...]

Group Rights = Elite Privileges

The Western Standard quotes an article on Michael Ignatieff’s new book True Patriot Love: “America and Canada are both free nations,” Ignatieff writes. “But our freedom is different: There is no right to bear arms north of the 49th parallel and no capital punishment either; we believe in collective rights to language and land, and, in [...]