Blue v. Red
As it happens, I agree with Jonah Goldberg’s response to conservatives who are concerned about the reemergence of the term “progressive” as a trick to maneuver opponents into the rhetorical position of “against progress”: Re: the need for conservatives to come up with their own label. No thanks. Sure, I’d like to have “liberal” back…
Kiersten Marek offers a rare opportunity to highlight — in productive, conversational terms — what liberals and conservatives see differently in one of the topics over which they wrangle: I know some at Anchorrising.com and the head of the Rhode Island Republican party, Giovanni Cicione, complain of the strong poverty advocacy lobby in the state,…
Contra Ian Donnis, you can make this stuff up: Mohler began by summarizing some recent research into sexual orientation, and advising his Christian readership that they should brace for the possibility that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven. Mohler wrote that such proof would not alter the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality, but said…
In a comment to my post on sex education, Rhody points to another of those differences of understanding between conservatives and liberals that seem nigh impossible to resolve: I think the best way to discourage sex before marriage is building kids’ self-esteem and letting them know they don’t have to give it up to feel…
One is justifiably reluctant to declare Michael Novak flat wrong on matters of religion and culture, but I’m compelled to do just that in response to his writing: Being a liberal means having a right to do anything that you want sexually anywhere, anytime, and with anybody. Thus, there is no way for liberals to…
I was so perplexed by Froma Harrop’s column about the Democrat Party’s 50-State Strategy that I thought for a moment that I’d missed something that would be, politically, on the order of magnitude of the Earth’s poles moving to the equator: Imagine Democrats in Washington who don’t all sound like Henry Waxman, Charlie Rangel or…
This week, “Kos” (Markos Moulitsas), uber-blogger of the left-blogosphere, argued in a Cato Institute’s monthly electronic journal that the Democratic party is the natural home for voters who believe in individual liberty…It was my fealty to the notion of personal liberty that made me a Republican when I came of age in the 1980s. It…
Via a predictably political RI Future post, I came across this even more predictably political DailyKos post: You do not abuse the trust of children. If you find out about the possible abuse of children, you have a duty to stop it. A duty. An imperative. An oath. All those words that men say, and…
PROEM: I wrote the following piece for publication in the closing months of 2004. As these things happen, it was never published, but never actually rejected. In the intervening months, I’ve periodically looked for it online — as if I’d posted it somewhere — so it seemed prudent to go ahead and do so now.…
The Projo welcomes Rhode Islanders back to the first work-day of the new year with a bit of regional jingoism that is equal parts inaccurate and ugly. The gist of a Tuesday unsigned editorial is that New England and the Pacific Northwest are so superior to the rest of the country, they need not care…
