Category Archives: Social Commentary
The New John Birchers
The modern left is built around a trio of laudable principles: protecting the environment is good, racism is bad, and so is demonizing a person over his or her sexual preferences. (In the chapter of his book Intellectuals titled “The Flight from Reason,” Paul Johnson wrote that “At the end of the Second World War, there was a significant change in the predominant aim of secular intellectuals, a shift of emphasis from utopianism to hedonism.” ) But just as the Bircher right began to see communists everywhere, the new Bircher left sees racism, sexism, homophobia, and Koch Brothers everywhere.
They’re lurking around more corners than Gen. Ripper imagined there were commies lurking inside Burpelson Air Force Base. They’re inside your video games! They own NFL teams! They’ll steal your condoms! Disagree with President Obama? Racist! (That goes for you too, Bill, Hillary, and your Democratic supporters.) Not onboard for gender-neutral bathrooms? Not too thrilled with abortion-obsessed candidates like Wendy Davis and “Mark Uterus”? Sexist! Disagree with using global warming as a cudgel to usher in the brave new world of bankrupt coal companies and $10 a gallon gasoline? Climate denier!
And as with the original Birchers, don’t get ‘em started on fluoride.
Or GMO foods, or vaccines.
The Unbearable Lightness Of Feminism
Gender feminism has nothing to do with equality; it’s all about promoting leftism, and anti-western views.
A Conservative Anti-Government Nationalist Liberal
That’s what this test says I am.
Collectivism score: -67%
Authoritarianism score: -33%
Internationalism score: 0%
Tribalism score: 17%
Liberalism score: 17%
FWIW.
[Update late evening]
You people are all fools. Either this test generates random results, or it’s a way for you all to claim that you’re not RINOs.
Why Space Tourism Matters
Thoughts from Holman Jenkins. I like the idea of naming errant asteroids after senators.
[Second link should get you through the paywall]
Jobs And The Economy
That’s what the GOP needs to focus on, not social issues.
Yes.
Sir Walter Raleigh And Sir Richard Branson
How well does the historical analogy work?
The New Women Of The GOP
Here they are. I think, or at least hope, that Texas and Colorado finally put a stake through the heart of the idiotic fake “war on women.”
In Defense Of Daring
I respond to Jeffrey Kluger’s Branson bashing, over at The New Atlantis.
[Update a few minutes later]
Meghan McArdle says that of course space tourism will continue. The notion that a fatality in a flight test would destroy an industry is pretty stupid.
Also, nothing has changed in the past decade: Alex Tabarrok still doesn’t understand the difference between orbital and suborbital flight, or between flight test and operations.
Branson And Refunds
I’m sure that you’re as shocked as I am that Sir Richard’s statement on Saturday is at variance with reality. I think the technical business term for this is “fiasco.” And I’m angry that it has so tainted the industry, not to mention given the FAA an excuse to regulate, if they wish to.
[Update a couple minutes later]
The real problem is “bad business.”