Monthly Archives: October 2012

Julian Sanchez upbraids Matt Yglesias for upbraiding those who advocate third-party voting in safe states. Here’s Yglesias: I’ve noticed that various anti-Obama pro-third-party arguments on the Internet proceed with an annoying two step. Usually the headline and the lede of … Continue reading →

Eric makes a reasonable rebuttal to my Zompocalypse theory of electoral politics: [W]e’ve been through that several times now. Regardless of what one thinks of conservatism as an ideology or governing philosophy, one might think George W. Bush, the 104th … Continue reading →

SEE? SEE??? Whedon gets it. He gets what I’ve been talking about.

WordPress seems to have eaten a post. What I said, though, was this: Matt Stoller argues, as I have, that liberals should consider voting third party. But he thinks they should do it even in swing states, as part of … Continue reading →

This is unconvincing: Any philosophy that claims that there exists nothing supernatural cannot grant purpose to suffering…. The secular cannot answer the problem of suffering (as I’ve spoken in depth elsewhere), but suffering is still a problem we naturally want … Continue reading →

In a comment to the previous post, Eric points out, correctly, that I’m a little stingy about conceding the many good things Obama has done while in office. To correct that, let me link you to this brief op-ed by … Continue reading →

Here we go again. Last week I was in class and the professor, a leading scholar at one of America’s top research universities, casually mentioned in passing that she was still angry at Nader and LaDuke for “costing Gore the … Continue reading →

I’d been avoiding Eric Posner’s recent Slate article, “The World Doesn’t Love the First Amendment,” because I suspected it was unprincipled, provocative linkbait with little intellectual content. I was right: We have to remember that our First Amendment values are … Continue reading →

All the negative reviews of Pres. Obama’s performance in the debate last night make me wonder if he isn’t pulling a long con on the Romney campaign. The Romney gang aggressively lowered expectations for their candidate before the debate. The … Continue reading →

Listening to this recent episode of NPR’s Planet Money reminded me of how much I liked its predecessor episode, in which the hosts got five economists from across the political spectrum to propose some economic reforms that they could all … Continue reading →