Scenes from a Moral Panic

From Craig Reinarman and Harry G. Levine (1997), The Crack Attack: Politics and Media in the Crack Scare. On September 5, 1989, President Bush, speaking from the presidential desk in the Oval Office, announced his plan for achieving “victory over drugs” in his first major prime-time address to the nation, broadcast on all three national [...]

Obama Supports Extension of Patriot Act

Liberal, eh? The Obama administration supports extending three key provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of the year, the Justice Department told Congress in a letter made public Tuesday. Lawmakers and civil rights groups had been pressing the Democratic administration to say whether it wants to preserve the [...]

Drunk in Public

Geoffrey Palmer want to make being drunk in public an offence in New Zealand: “It’s not an offence to be drunk in a public place but nonetheless police have to deal with (drunk people), but they have nowhere to take them.” Being drunk in a public place should be an infringement offence that incurs a [...]

Woman Tased in Front of Kids for Driving with Hand on Cheek, Questioning Authoritah

I’ve been assuming that the forthcoming ban on using a cellphone while driving is just an unenforceable piece of symbolic politics unlikely to do any harm. I still think that’s right, but this story from the States of a woman being pulled over for allegedly talking on a cellphone, tased, arrested, and having her kids [...]

Coherence versus Political Reality

Arnold Kling tries to categorize current attitudes towards markets and state intervention as combinations of three points on an ideological triangle; Libertarian, Conservative, and Progressive: 1. Point L, where you believe that markets are effective at processing information and solving problems. This position is to take a radically pro-market view, and to let markets fix [...]

Fatties as Folk Devils

Megan McArdle has a great interview in the Atlantic with Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth. Campos argues that turning fat people into thin people is impossible, and in any case wouldn’t do much to improve health outcomes. The part I found most interesting, though, is the discussion of status politics and moral panic: It’s the classic pattern [...]

Economists and Sociologists

Fabio Rojas at Orgtheory asks: if sociology sucks, why do economists keep doing it? He cites Weber, Parsons, Becker, Levitt, Akerlof, and Caplan as examples of economists who “regularly dine at our restaraunt,” yet constantly complain about the service. I’d add Douglass North, Timur Kuran, and many of the contemporary Austrian School to the list of [...]

Moral Argument and Political Force

I agree heartily with this from Wendy McElroy: One danger of arguing for or against a position is that everyone thinks you are saying, “there ought to be a law.” Take the issue of discrimination on the basis of sex or gender as an example. If you argue against it, people assume you want to [...]

Preference Falsification and Support for Gay Marriage

Andrew Gelman is stunned that support for gay marriage has increased more in states with already liberal attitudes: In the past fifteen years, gay marriage has increased in popularity in all fifty states. No news there, but what was a surprise to me is where the largest changes have occurred. The popularity of gay marriage has [...]

Venezuela Bans Coke Zero

Socialists ban the darndest things: The Venezuelan government of US-critic Hugo Chavez ordered Coca-Cola to withdraw its Coke Zero beverage from the South American nation, citing unspecified dangers to health. The decision follows a wave of nationalisations and increased scrutiny of businesses in South America’s top oil exporter. Health Minister Jesus Mantilla said the zero-calorie [...]