Paradise at Ground Zero
What I’m not expecting to hear is anyone asking how it was that about 25,000 people in the towers aided each other in an orderly evacuation, without which the casualty count would have been much higher than 2,603.
Big Society: Can the Britons “Build That”?
The place is Great Britain; the year is 2011. Years of economic downturn have brought the unsustainability of government-funded social services to a crisis...
9-11 and the Cloud of Overwhelming Force
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, 9-11-09. Eight years ago today, and in the days immediately following, Americans found themselves bewildered. An unprecedented mood had...
Health Subsidiarity, or Solidarity, or Socialism (Take Your Pick)
Wichita, KS
The debate over health care reform in the Senate has moved into overdrive, with one possible compromise following another in rapid succession. The...
Mr. Maturen Goes to Washington
Queens, NY
Many of us have, I imagine, indulged over the course of this summer in a certain amount of GOP doomer porn-- reading (and...
Why Isn’t Romania Rich?
An address to the Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, June 22, 2012
It is puzzling to note that somewhere between 4 million and 8 million...
The Tragic Logic of Central Authority
Ross Douthat reflects on the way in which globalization, the mass media, and participatory democracy make local control so difficult to maintain.
President Biden and the Lost Cause
In Lost Cause debates, President Biden should be wary of casting the first stone: his own history demonstrates the complicated relationship the country has with its deadliest war and the men who led it.
And the Jays Have it (Republican Bunning Hazards the Impolitic)
As one of literary bent and so frequently guilty of casting the charge of a Pox On Both Houses at our besotted political parties, I was impressed that at long last, at least one Republican stalwart stood tall and took a beating in the name of fiscal discipline.
Group Decisionmaking and Individual Responsibility
Part of the pushback against the notion that groups can make decisions comes from the fear that we already use groups to absolve ourselves...