A Collection of Posts Related to the BP Disaster Found on My Facebook Wall this Morning

One with the comment “The last 30 years seem to have been an enormous hamster wheel” links to President Carter’s “Malaise Speech.”

Another with the comment “I was wondering how long it would take for someone to step up to BP’s defense” exposes some congressional idiocy.

A reply to the above states “LOL this lady is fucking retarded.”

The reply is all the more profound because of information found in a post by the Heritage Foundation, that, while “conservative,” may have some significant disagreements with the Republican Ms. Bachmann. The post also refers to President  Carter’s speech linked above.

Says the Heritage foundation on Facebook:

Jimmy Carter once spoke of America’s “crisis of confidence.” In reality, there was a crisis of leadership. Last night, President Obama revealed a crisis of competence. Read about it in The Morning Bell. What do you think of the President’s leadership on the oil spill?

More to the point (especially re: Ms. Bachmann’s idiocy) is this last post with the comment “BP is getting exactly what it paid for. Best not let the opportunity to increase big oil’s profits go to waste.”

And more in the Washington Examiner.

Our energy policy (amongst many other things) will continue to be a “hamster wheel” so long as Big Government and Big Business collude.

The Moral Minority

Over at Reason.com, Damon Root has an article titled Conservatives V. Libertarians, The debate over judicial activism divides former allies.

The purpose of “judicial activism” is perhaps most famously explained by Alexis de Tocqueville in chapter 15 of his Democracy in America, wherein he discusses the power of the American legislatures, and the “tyranny of the majority.”

Less of a Financial System

I don’t like economics. That has to be said. “Rational” this and that is all a bunch of hogwash. It’s not a “myth.” It’s certainly not a truth. And “reason” is in no way quantifiable. People choose to do things. A good individualist will believe that people choosing to do things is a good thing. The act of choosing, choice, is the greatest ability of an individual.

Another favorite of mine.

I am honored to call Jim Stergios a friend. Recently he gave a speech at the convocation  for the University Professors Program at Boston University (which is sadly seeing its last days, I think). It’s well worth a read, even for those who are not currently graduates (click on “speech” above, if you haven’t already, to get a Boston Globe article with an excerpt–the full text is linked at the end of the article).

Randy Barnett is a favorite of mine.

Here’s an example of why, from his blog at the Volokh Conspiracy, wherein Mr. Barnett discusses “Judicial Restraint.”

The Morality of Ivan Ilych:

or How He Learned to Stop Caring and Love Death.

The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy[1] is a short story detailing the moral life of a lawyer. As such it is obviously interesting for a student of law and literature. Morality and law are closely related. Some may say that law and morality are synonymous. At least American law purports to uphold morality, and American legal ideas originate in American moral ideas. Or perhaps legal ideas are based around moral ideas, like scaffolding, or buttresses supporting a building. A quick reading of Ivan Ilych presents complications to one holding these views (law as morality, or law as supporting morality). Ivan Ilych is a “good” lawyer, and yet seems to have led an immoral life. However, though he has led an immoral life, he is saved at its end. He certainly was not saved because he followed the law. That is to say, The Death of Ivan Ilych does not suggest that a good life is a lawful one. It also does not suggest that a lawful life is a bad one.

More on the Definition of “Conservative.”

As a follow up to yesterday’s post, I offer the following article by Murray Rothbard, detailing, in part, his perception of the emergence of the modern “Conservative” movement. It is a fascinating read.

A Definition of “Conservative.”

A chain of Google searches, initiated, as such journeys so often are, by distantly related curiosities, led me to the following article at www.theamericanview.com, by Claes G. Ryn.

Read carefully, this article offers a good definition of American Conservatism (and exposes the uselessness of the label). Like many conservative articles/blogs these days, this one primarily defines conservatism by pointing out the flaws and failings of the “neo-con” movement (started, depending on who you talk to, during the Reagan or W. Bush administrations–the above article picks Reagan as the culprit), and also, more interestingly, by contrasting Burke (the accepted godfather of the Anglo/American/individualist/liberal conservative movement) and Locke. This method of definition is not effective. Knowing that something is not a few things, does not explain what something is, unless one lives in a world of very few variables. Unlike those many articles, however, in this one Mr. Ryn does provide enough to come up with a workable starting definition:

Choice

When I was sixteen, after my sophomore year of high school, I decided to leave my home, my parents, and my school, to live with a friend of the family in New Hampshire. I made this decision because, like many teenagers, I felt home and school were two rapidly burning ends of a very short candle. My parents were gracious enough to let me leave and live with a single woman, a widow, around the age of sixty, named Harriet. To understand my experience there one must first understand Harriet.