Anthony Weiner’s Corruption
The relationship between representative and represented is sacred, and by trading political admiration for sexual gratification, Anthony Weiner corrupted that relationship.
Articles By: Sam Barr 
Sam Barr '11, a government concentrator, was the Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Political Review in 2010.
Should We Make Everyone Vote?
Dylan Matthews has a well-meaning but ultimately misguided column in today’s Crimson arguing for compulsory voting. Let’s start with what Dylan gets right. He is absolutely right about this: “One reason why higher economic classes’ interests are so overrepresented in government is that rich people vote at disproportionately high rates, and poor people vote at disproportionately low rates.” He is [...]
Academic Pluralism Run Amok
Today the Crimson editors recommend that more concentrations allow non-traditional theses. They say, “a creative or experience-based thesis could, for many, serve as an even more beneficial experience” than the traditional research-based, analytical thesis. But the editors don’t say what non-traditional theses would look like in particular fields, though they assume such theses could be “on par” in “academic quality” [...]
Michelle Obama and the First Lady’s Role
In today’s Crimson, Dhruv Singhal takes on First Lady Michelle Obama, mocking her “seizure-inducing inanities” and the media’s obsession with her fashion choices. First, let me say that his criticisms of the political media are entirely valid. All the coverage of Obama’s fashion is unnecessary. Dhruv calls this coverage “objectifying scrutiny of her every fashion decision.” No, I’m sorry, “her [...]
An Overcompensated Public Sector?
We have something like a bipartisan consensus that public sector unions are a major cause of states’ budget shortfalls and that public sector workers are overpaid. The first claim, at least, seems to be lacking in evidence. And the second is no better. This goes back to an exchange I had with Alex Sherbany a couple months ago. I suggested [...]
On the Broccoli Objection
Those who believe the health insurance mandate is unconstitutional have relied frequently on slippery-slope arguments. Many have been convinced by what Andrew Koppelman calls the Broccoli Objection—the idea that, if Congress can penalize individuals for failing to purchase health insurance, it must have the power to penalize them for failing to eat their broccoli. (Talk about a Nanny State!) There [...]
Weighing In: The Slippery Originalist
Apparently, by raising questions which are always raised against originalists and asking for an originalist’s reply, I am guilty of pedantry and disparaging the debate about the Constitution. Who knew? Other than those digs, Samuel Coffin has a thoughtful reply to my last post. He argues that I engaged in “bad originalism” in order to make originalism look bad. Of [...]
Lying with Statistics
The headline at RealClearPolitics: “65% of doctors think new law will worsen care.” The headline at CNBC: “Survey: U.S. doctors fear healthcare reform.” The headline at the Wall Street Journal: “Survey of U.S. physicians finds pessimism on future of health care.” The reality: This poll was conducted through a “fax-response methodology,” which means it didn’t survey a random sample of [...]
Updating the Constitution
Wyatt Troia has a column in the Crimson arguing that the Constitution, as it stands, does not permit many “liberal schemes” (including the health insurance mandate) and that, if liberals want to make their schemes constitutional, they need to pass constitutional amendments. Wyatt correctly notes that the enumerated Congressional powers in Article 1, Section 8, do not include workplace diversity [...]
Beck and Napolitano Conveniently Overlook the Sixteenth Amendment
I realize it might be perilous to take seriously the extreme constitutional vision put forward on Glenn Beck’s program, but I’m watching his special on the Constitution, and one little thing jumped out me. Beck wanted to know, from his guest Andrew Napolitano, what we could do to reverse Barack Obama’s incursions on the true Constitution. How can we return [...]
Thin Skin at Reason Magazine
Christopher Beam has a long feature in New York magazine on “The Trouble with Liberty,” that is, with libertarianism. I liked the piece, but then, I guess I’m disposed to like such pieces. Radley Balko, a senior editor at the libertarian Reason magazine, is not. He’s upset that Beam wasn’t fair and balanced. Balko says Beam could have “provided sound [...]
Peter Orszag, Co-Optation, and Progressivism
Check out Will Wilkinson’s post on Peter Orszag’s disappointing decision to cash in at Citigroup. First Wilkinson suggests that this sort of co-optation of government officials by market forces is a fatal flaw in progressivism. “[M]arket institutions find ways to use the government’s regulatory and insurer-of-last-resort functions as countervailing forces against their competitors and, in the end, against the very [...]
Weighing In: Class-Based Affirmative Action Good, But Arguments Against Race-Based Affirmative Action Still Bad
Peter Bozzo has posted a very thorough reply to my reply to his column which argued that we should replace race-based affirmative action with class-based affirmative action. (Got that?) Peter cites three studies, but only one of them seems to have analyzed the socioeconomic backgrounds of African-American college students, as opposed to the socioeconomic backgrounds of college students of all [...]
This is Not Journalism: Politico Edition, Starring Jonathan Allen
Jonathan Allen has a long piece on Politico that is one long excoriation of immature liberals who won’t grow up and let the Obama-orchestrated tax deal go through. This piece represents everything that is wrong with Politico: It is filled with simple-minded analysis of the personalities and psychologies of politicians, based on nothing but the self-serving quotes of other politicians [...]
