Sam makes some fair points, but I don’t think Wilkinson was saying that anyone in general can get rich on Wall Street now that Washington is so powerful. What he actually said is a little different: [I]t really isn’t the Citizens United decision that’s about to make Peter Orszag a minor Midas. It’s the vast power of a handful of Washington players, [...]
In their exchanges, both Pete and Sam seem to accept the rather odd idea that affirmative action exists primarily to benefit the poor. For example, Sam writes that: Peter’s most compelling argument is that affirmative action “typically benefits only middle- and upper-class minority students”—that is, students who probably aren’t nearly as vulnerable to segregation, foreclosure, unemployment, educational inequality, and other social [...]
Sam Barr has responded to my column in last Wednesday’s Crimson with an analysis that ultimately comes out in favor of race-based affirmative action. While I thank Sam for his thoughtful comments on the article, I would like to reply to some of his criticisms and clarify certain aspects of my argument, which suggested that class-based affirmative action should replace [...]
Sam, I agree with you that Rand Paul is off base in his remarks about the Civil Rights Act, but I have a few quibbles about the way you make your argument. (I see that when you aren’t going after Ayn, you are going after Rand with equal intensity. Young libertarians seem to love the Rands as much as young collectivists seem to despise them!) Now I [...]
Sam Barr’s most recent post makes the rather shocking claim that Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky being vacated by the retiring Jim Bunning, is a racist, or at least that he is not a non-racist. Sam deduces this from the fact that Mr. Paul is not a “consistent libertarian,” that he “picks and [...]
Goldman Sachs has been making headlines (again) after charges were filed by the SEC alleging that the company sold a financial product whose components were decided on in part by Paulson & Co., a company who made bets in a hedge fund that the product would see losses, without disclosing this to investors and thereby creating a conflict of interest. [...]
In his April 11 post, “Weighing In: The Great Tax Debate,” Max Novendstern rebuts my most recent argument that it is inappropriate for 73 percent of federal income taxes to be paid by 10 percent of the American population. Since our disagreement is to at least some extent based on our differing conceptions of fairness, I will offer only a [...]
In his post “Harvard’s Supposed Crisis of Faith,” Sam Barr criticizes Lisa Miller’s recent Newsweek article about the study of religion at Harvard: “Of course religion is important to study, …even or especially if you’re a nonbeliever. But I also said, or implied, that she was wasting her time with this article, because religion is not in nearly such dire [...]
We began The HPRgument with the goal of creating a new space on campus for lively discussion of the things that matter — political, cultural, or Harvardian Since we began three weeks ago, debate on this site has been spirited and engaged: we’ve taken on the racial politics of Avatar, praised Obama’s “shrewd” bank tax, discussed the “ Sociology of [...]
Sam Barr lambasts the Crimson for “condescending” the Tea Partiers: I really don’t understand the impulse among many Harvard students (if the Crimson is any guide) to pat the Tea Partiers on the head and say, “I don’t agree with you, but you’re totally what this country is all about.” No, they’re not. They’re just crazy. I understand the need to call a [...]
Fog of War Volume 36, Number 3, Fall 2009 Letter from the Editor Front Section Bursting at the Seams IAN MERRIFIELD Drug incarcerations, prison overcrowding, and community corrections Escaping the Poppy Field IVANA DJAK, NEIL PATEL American anti-opium efforts in Afghanistan The Source of the Problem ANGELA PRIMBAS Confronting prescription drug abuse Decriminalization in Massachusetts MATTHEW S. MILLER, KATHERINE LEE [...]
Urban America Volume 36, Number 2, Summer 2009. Letter from the Editor The Ten-Year Plan IAN MERRIFIELD Daring to end homelessness The Future of Urban Education Tiffany wen and jyoti jasrasaria The impact of new innovation on urban school systems Cities Without Limits Chris danello and ashley fabrizio How long-term factors drive municipal economies A New Approach to a Chronic [...]
To the Editor: Please explain to me the logic of an article that announces that Sonia Sotomayor has an “issue of temperament,” presents exactly one instance of allegedly intemperate questioning, and concludes with a quote from the lawyer to whom those questions were addressed, saying that the questions were “reasonable and fine.” Okay. Now explain to me how these are [...]
For an allegedly “grotesque” (but, thankfully, “innocuous”) confusion, Sam Barr’s equation of liberty and equally is pretty well-founded empirically. Think about the history of America. Think about the struggle to integrate non-land-owners, Catholics, Jews, women, blacks and now gays. Surely, as Sam notes, all this expanded both liberty and equality at once. One way to understand the relationship between liberty [...]
Ah, the transition period. Yes, these might just be the longest eleven weeks in our nation’s history, as our economy teeters on the brink and we fight two costly wars, and all anybody can talk about is who will be Obama’s deputy assistant chief of staff and what Todd Palin needed with $40,000 worth of snow-mobile jerseys. If you [...]
