Which is why liberal and libertarian alike tend to ignore such things and pretend that we're starting our society carte blanc since yesterday. Because if you start talking about repaying people for old exploitative labor practices, you're already 3/4 of the way to the IWW.

Oh, wait, that's the post-Clinton Democratic party.

Bernard Henri Levy - The Thomas Friedman of Philosophy

Actually, I'm pretty sure the broccoli flower (that is, the part most of us eat) is designed specifically to propagate the reproduction of broccoli plants. Learn something new every day, I guess.

The problem is that there's no real honest-to-god left wing nutjob party to balance out the religio-nationalist crazy people in the GOP.

Both parties redistribute wealth; it's just that when liberals do it, they don't crash the economy.

I read these guys at PowerLine (definitely a right wing site) mostly because there is much less grenade throwing than your typical partisan blog

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

(Not a conservative voice, but if you're not following Ta-Nahesi Coates you're doing it wrong, I don't care what side of the political fence you land on. Same goes for Jay Smooth (formerly of the vblog Ill Doctrine.))

(But please don't recommend McArdle to me.)

What's sad about all of these good suggestions is how little you read writers like that in the mainstream print media. Liberalism gets fairly represented by Krugman, Dionne, Meyerson and a few lesser lights, but if you want the conservative POV all you get are the same tired bunch (Will, Krauthammer, etc.) who've been ranting against liberalism since the Carter administration.

On the other hand, there's that one nun that Sullivan ran in his "Ask .... Anything" series. Nuns have to be conservative by default, right?

Liberalism gets fairly represented by Krugman, Dionne, Meyerson and a few lesser lights...

The bottom line is that Chief Justice Roberts‘ traitor vote will ensure more monumental spending and wasted taxes and put almost 15 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) under one of the world’s most bureaucratic, ineffective, incompetent and grossly expensive systems ever devised by man: our out-of- control federal government.

Chief Justice Roberts squandered the opportunity to restore judicial, financial and legislative sanity to a government that by any sane person’s standards is insane and addicted to centralized federal control of our lives.

Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War. Our Founding Fathers’ concept of limited government is dead.

Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.

(Krugman is generally excellent and an exception, although he notably doesn't run with the in-crowd in DC.)

AN INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
Checks & Balances In Government Act

PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA; AMENDING ARTICLE II, CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA, BY AMENDING SECTION 3; THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES IS THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND AND MAY NOT BE VIOLATED BY THE FEDERAL, STATE, OR ANY LOCAL GOVERNMENT. TO PROTECT THEIR FREEDOMS AND PRESERVE THE CHECKS AND BALANCES OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, THE PEOPLE OF ARIZONA SHALL BE EMPOWERED TO REJECT ANY FEDERAL ACTION THAT THEY DETERMINE VIOLATES THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. IN ADDITION TO ALL OTHER AVAILABLE LEGAL REMEDIES, THEY MAY DO SO BY 1) MAJORITY VOTE IN AN INITIATIVE OR REFERENDUM, OR 2) MAJORITY VOTE OF THEIR REPRESENTATIVES IN BOTH HOUSES OF THE LEGISLATURE WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE GOVERNOR.
TEXT OF PROPOSED AMENDMENT

If Jack Biltis has his way, Arizonans may soon get to pick and choose which U.S. laws they don’t want to abide by, like a buffet of federalism.

Biltis submitted over 320,000 signatures last night to place on the November ballot a referendum that would allow Arizonans “to reject any federal action that they determine violates the United States Constitution,” as the ballot measure reads. Assuming Arizona’s secretary of state affirms that at least 260,000 signatures are valid, voters will soon be going to polls to consider whether they should empower themselves to nullify federal laws.

...

Biltis, who owns a payroll processing business and says he’s invested “a large amount of my personal fortune on this,” says the overreach of the federal government is personal for him. “In my old homeland, I’ve seen the government grow and take away freedoms and ruin business and ruin communities,” he told KJZZ. Lately, “I’ve seen the government growing out of control and it looks like familiar signs,” he said. Biltis is from Montreal, Canada. “I’ve seen, literally, my father-in-law die at the hands of socialized medicine,” he explained.

Indeed, the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is the “flagship” example of why the law is needed, he has said, but also points to some Republican-backed measures like the Patriot Act. Federal overreach also comes in more quotidian varieties, like speed limits and the ban on incandescent light bulbs. “Besides the insanity of it, if you have a federal government that can choose to ban a light bulb that has existed for 100 years, that served us pretty well, what can’t they do?” he asked reporters.

...

“I believe the Supreme Court completely got it wrong,” he told reporters of the Affordable Care Act ruling. In fact, he said he disagrees with the entire concept of judicial review, first established by the 1803 Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison, which allows courts to strike down federal laws.

...

Biltis actually sounds relatively reasonable and says he would not want his proposal to be used by people looking to dodge taxes or for other “light hearted” fair, but it’s a slippery step once states can opt out of federal laws. For instance, he acknowledges that states could opt out of anti-segregation laws, but says he’s confident that wouldn’t happen.

If Jack Biltis has his way, Arizonans may soon get to pick and choose which U.S. laws they don’t want to abide by, like a buffet of federalism.

No, they won't. Nullification is unconstitutional, and that amendment would immediately be stopped by federal injunction, and then overturned 9-0 by the Supreme Court.

No, they won't. Nullification is unconstitutional, and that amendment would immediately be stopped by federal injunction, and then overturned 9-0 by the Supreme Court.

I have to tentatively agree with Brian here. Outside of Krugman liberal punditry is about as meaningful and worthwhile as a David Brooks column.

But then they could just vote that the ruling of unconstitutionality was unconstitutional, and then they wouldn't have to abide by *that!*

Well, that's just a half-step from secession. I don't think Arizona would stand much of a chance in the Second Civil War.

I dunno if I'm willing to go that far. Once, I imagined meeting someone from a red state who thought David Brooks was very smart. But then again, I also once met someone from a blue state who thought Brooks was not very smart. So who can say, really?

I keep waiting for one of the conservatives to show up

Two weeks ago, in another reversal of policy, the U.S. joined a nearly unanimous 153-1 U.N. vote to adopt a resolution setting out a timetable on the proposed Arms Trade Treaty, including a U.N. conference to produce a final accord in 2012.

"Conventional arms transfers are a crucial national security concern for the United States, and we have always supported effective action to control the international transfer of arms," Clinton said in a statement. "The United States is prepared to work hard for a strong international standard in this area."

Gun rights advocates, however, are calling the reversal both a dangerous submission of America's Constitution to international governance and an attempt by the Obama administration to sneak into effect private gun control laws it couldn't pass through Congress.

Bolton, for example, told Ginny Simone, managing editor of the National Rifle Association's NRA News and host of the NRA's Daily News program, "The administration is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there's no doubt – as was the case back over a decade ago – that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control."

He continued, "There's never been any doubt when these groups talk about saying they only want to prohibit illicit international trafficking in small arms and light weapons, it begs the whole question of what's legal and what's not legal. And many of the implications of these treaty negotiations are very much in their domestic application. So, whatever the appearance on the surface, there's no doubt that domestic firearm control is right at the top of their agenda."

A useful liberal commentariat would at least make some sort of case that the problem of today's economic world isn't "too little capitalism" but rather "too much." The fact that such a basic position is still verboten in America is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

If "too much capitalism" can be thought of as "too much runaway capitalism", there are more than a few commentators (Krugman, Dionne, Meyerson) who bring that point up nearly every time they write.

EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. – As protesters assembled on a beach in advance of Mitt Romney's evening event at the home of conservative billionaire David Koch, the candidate slipped to East Hampton for his first of three fundraisers on this tony stretch of Long Island.

The line of Range Rovers, BMWs, Porsche roadsters and one gleaming cherry red Ferrari began queuing outside of Revlon Chairman Ronald Perelman's estate off Montauk Highway long before Romney arrived, as campaign aides and staffers in white polo shirts emblazoned with the logo of Perelman's property -- the Creeks -- checked off names under tight security.

They came with high hopes for the presumed Republican nominee, who is locked in a tight race with President Obama. And some were eager to give the candidate some advice about the next four months.
...
A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. "I don't think the common person is getting it," she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. "Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them.

"We've got the message," she added. "But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies -- everybody who's got the right to vote -- they don't understand what's going on. I just think if you're lower income -- one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work, they don't understand the impact."

Brian, if your point is to distinguish Krugman from Dionne in terms of credentials, I won't disagree. Krugman stands alone among columnists in the MSM whom you can read on a regular 2 or 3 day a week basis. But Dionne is no fan of capitalism as practiced by our current set of culprits.

"Runaway" capitalism is just a No True Scotsman dodge. Capitalism is what capitalism does. Sam's entire point is that the center-left commentariat keeps arguing on behalf of a non-existent pure form of capitalism rather than the thing that actually might work - a mixed economy which draws both on capitalism and socialism, as in a social democratic framework.

I keep waiting for one of the conservatives to show up and take issue with or have an opinion on the left's positive positions on various conservative columnists and thinkers they read.

"I don't think the common person is getting it," she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits.

You say that as if there are conservatives here.

Do they still say "the common person"? That's nice to know...

This is reminds me of the Arkitekton debacle.

We have an actual National Review staffer who posts here. The idea that BTF's politics threads are nothing but leftists was never true, but it's not even close to true anymore.

You say that as if there are conservatives here. Other than Snapper, who is on a self-imposed hiatus, there aren't many conservatives who post in these threads,

Do they still say "the common person"? That's nice to know... It gives one a feeling of solidarity, almost of continuity with the past, that sort of thing.

I absolutely definitely think this, but I honestly don't currently have the economic bonafides to back it up, so that's the main reason I mostly keep quiet on it.

The efforts of governments are concentrated not on defending the living Earth from destruction, but on defending the machine that is destroying it. Whenever consumer capitalism becomes snarled up by its own contradictions, governments scramble to mend the machine, to ensure – though it consumes the conditions that sustain our lives – that it runs faster than ever before.

The thought that it might be the wrong machine, pursuing the wrong task, cannot even be voiced in mainstream politics. The machine greatly enriches the economic elite, while insulating the political elite from the mass movements it might otherwise confront. We have our bread; now we are wandering, in spellbound reverie, among the circuses.

"I don't think the common person is getting it," she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits.

there are one or two others, but mainly we have some libertarians who will carry water for the GOP every now and then, but that's more of any anti-dem/anti-liberal thing rather than a pro-conservative stance.

This reminds me of the Arkitekton debacle.

The Zambrellis scoffed at attempts by the Democrats -- who mocked Romney in an ad Sunday as "great for oil billionaires, bad for the middle class" -- to wage class warfare. "Would you like to hear about the fundraisers I went to for him?" Sharon Zambrelli said of Obama. "Do you have an hour? ... All the ones in the city -- it was all of Wall Street."

"It's not helping the economy to pit the people who are the engine of the economy against the people who rely on that engine," Michael Zambrelli said as the couple waited in their SUV for clearance into the Creeks shortly after the candidate's motorcade flew by and entered the pine-tree lined estate. "He's basically been biting the hand that fed him in '08. ... I would bet 25% of the people here were supporters of Obama in '08. And they're here now."

"It's not helping the economy to pit the people who are the engine of the economy against the people who rely on that engine,"

Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.

That's what I mean. The response to that should be along the lines of the one Andrew Jackson gave South Carolinians in 1830 when they threatened secession: you try that and I will personally go over there and hang every one of you.

What was the nature of Russia and Ukraine's compact?

There are plenty of soft spots in the center-left as it exists here today, but it isn't the center-left that brought you a Supreme Court that's one step away from dismantling the constitutional foundation of the New Deal and Great Society laws. It isn't the center-left that's trying to strip away voting rights and pretend that climate change is a hoax. Wake up and smell the ####### coffee.

Ukraine was a member of the Russian Alliance/Soviet Union. Then they didn't want to be any more. Should Moscow have sent in the troops?

Or talk to me about Tibet/China. China says Tibet is a member region of greater China being overrun by radical religious fanatics. Tibet says they're an independent nation state being oppressed by an evil, remote imperial power. How is Tibet's claim more reasonable and defensible than Arizona's?

Are you trolling, or is this serious? I'm asking genuinely.

Ukraine was a member of the Russian Alliance/Soviet Union. Then they didn't want to be any more. Should Moscow have sent in the troops?

If you're going to bash liberals as much as you do, Ray, and lean on the word "liberal" as much as you do, and never once mention "conservatives" in your Libertarian manifestos of human behavior, you'll pardon me if I call you conservative. You follow conservative social values to the letter, you hold conservative financial positions. I did not call you a Republican, I called you conservative. Which, I'm sorry, you simply are.

No, you're not going to slide by that, easy. Was that alliance in the form of a contract of adhesion, or did the Ukraine have any say in the matter?

But what is the structural distinction between Tibet saying "we don't want to be in this 'China' thing and we deserve the option to self-rule" and Arizona saying "we don't want to be in this 'United States' thing and we deserve the option of self-rule?"

And yet, the entire impetus for Lassus's hilarious "Where are the conservatives?" comment was that there are few conservatives here.

I'm pretty sure the southwest of the USA was acquired via wars of expansion - namely against Mexico and the native tribes.

And I'm think maybe the victors were much too lenient on secessionist states

I'm pretty sure the southwest of the USA was acquired via wars of expansion - namely against Mexico and the native tribes.

I'm pretty sure the southwest of the USA was acquired via wars of expansion - namely against Mexico and the native tribes.

I support abortion rights and same-sex marriage, to name two. And I want to slash 80% of government. I hardly think that qualifies me as a conservative.

Well, it's me, so it's hardly one without the other, but yes, I'm being genuine. I *know* the emotional answer. People get to opt out of the evil empires, etc. But what is the structural distinction between Tibet saying "we don't want to be in this 'China' thing and we deserve the option to self-rule" and Arizona saying "we don't want to be in this 'United States' thing and we deserve the option of self-rule?"

I support abortion rights and same-sex marriage, to name two.

At the absolute very least all the plantations which employed slave labor should have been broken up into smaller lots and parceled out to non-slave holders- freed slaves themselves should have been granted homesteads out west (giving the the old plantations to the ex-slaves might appear more just- but would have just made white supremacist counter-reaction even more fierce than it was).

All who held office in the Confederacy should have been permanently banned from both holding office and the vote
All who owned slaves should have been permanently banned from both holding office and the vote (though this likely could not have been extended to the former slave owners from outside the Confederacy)
All who served in the Confederate military as officers should have been barred from holding office or voting