Peyton has posted a rejoinder to Max, trying to buttress his initial claim that it is “inappropriate for 73 percent of federal income taxes to be paid by 10 percent of the American population.” I am struck by a few things from Peyton’s post, and I want to pull them out and talk about them directly. First, Peyton argues that ... Read More
My Harvard Independent column for this week addresses the retirement of John Paul Stevens and the issue of picking his successor. Read the original here. If they made posters of Supreme Court Justices, I’d put John Paul Stevens on my bedroom wall. The man is a progressive hero — first and foremost, for his longevity. In 2006, the liberal radio ... Read More
Today, I did something which went against the deepest instincts of my time at the Harvard Political Review: reporting. I heard two days ago that Sarah Palin was going to be in town for the Boston Tea Party rally, and I knew this was something that I simply had to see. So this morning I woke up bright and early, ... Read More
Raul Carrillo has a column in today’s Crimson arguing that Democrats need to become better at the “politics of spirituality.” Such exhortations often contain an ambiguity, and Carillo’s is no exception. Is he criticizing liberals on substantive grounds, i.e. for their support for separation of church and state and their “neutral stance on issues of faith”? Or is he just ... Read More
In case you aren’t sick of the subject, I have written a full-length take-down of the recent Harvard Salient article on Ethnic Studies. It originally appeared in today’s Harvard Independent. Check out my HPR blog post from last week if you want the pithier, more sarcastic version. An Embarrassment to Harvard Conservatives Harvard conservatives, those Aristotle-citing, modernity-bemoaning, Western canon-promoting Young ... Read More
On Tuesday night I went to the Harvard Political Union’s discussion on climate change, which was centered around the question of what steps the University should be taking to be greener and on the issue of global warming in general. As part of what seemed to be a minority of non-affiliated observers at the event — i.e. not being part ... Read More
Newsweek’s Lisa Miller spills a lot of ink and raises a lot of dust in her article on “Harvard’s Crisis of Faith.” But her conclusion is small-bore and uncontroversial. Of course Harvard and all other colleges should offer and even require some exposure to religion and its attendant issues and debates. I have seen no evidence that Harvard thinks otherwise. ... Read More
Perhaps inspired by the beauty that is our new blog, the Harvard GOP relaunched their website yesterday, giving harvardgop.org a patriotic, deeply American makeover. The new site makes heavy use of the “Ken Burns effect” with dynamic and engaging photos of Newt Gingrich standing at the front of a table. I learned from a quick browse of the site that ... Read More
Today President Obama announced “that he would convene a half-day bipartisan health care session at the White House to be televised live this month, a high-profile gambit that will allow Americans to watch as Democrats and Republicans try to break their political impasse.” The announcement, which came during a Super Bowl pre-game show, is noteworthy for a number of reasons. ... Read More
Ross Douthat had an admirable column earlier this week arguing that, because we don’t really have strong evidence about the effectiveness of abstinence-only versus comprehensive sex-ed, we should just leave the issue to the states. Douthat says, accurately, that this battle is about “community values” more than public policy anyway. And, he concludes, values should be imposed, when they have ... Read More
Faith-based initiatives face tough political realities
The question is not intended substantively. The bill that is being debated by the Senate is an ugly mess from the perspective of any reasonable observer, left, right, or center. However, as inefficient and messy as it is, it will still do a much better job than the status quo of providing healthcare to the people in the country who ... Read More
