Author Archive | David Bernstein

It seems as though the present Israeli government has given up on any hope that the Palestinians will create a government capable of negotiating a stable peace agreement so long as Yassir Arafat is alive. Instead, Israel is activating the Jordanian and Egyptian options: encouraging these countries to be active in the West Bank and […]

Ze’ev Schiff of Ha’aretz reiterates a point I made on the VC a few weeks ago: Given human nature, occupation inevitably entails abuses, and a certain corruption of the occupiers. This isn’t a slamdunk argument against occupation (should the U.S. have not occupied Japan or western Germany after WWII, and let the Soviets march in […]

Over at the Liberty and Power blog, David Beito reveals that Sen. Joseph McCarthy was a “founding father” of the Fairness Doctrine.

I can’t say I have much sympathy for E. L. Doctorow, who was nearly “booed off the stage” while giving a virulently anti-Bush commencement address at Hofstra University. Unless the university in question is itself overtly committed to a particular ideology (such as a religious university) commencement is simply not the time or place for […]

I, too, was struck by the East Bay Express article Eugene quotes from below. Read it. One thing I’ve noticed is that the Muslim/Palestinian/Campus Left (an odd alliance, to say the least) has managed to make the words “Zionism” and “Zionist” into epithets, so much so that people don’t even know what the word means, […]

Paul Craig Roberts writes, via email: “David Bernstein is an example of yet another academic lawyer who thinks Brown was about southern segregation. Brown was a consolidation of five cases, 60% of which were from outside the south. The name of the lawsuit is Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Kansas is not a […]

Stuart Benjamin raises the interesting question of whether depriving the government of tax revenue actually limits government spending. Here is a link to relevant research by Bill Niskanen, a fine economist. As resident economist on VC, I thought I would offer a few observations: 1. The time period under consideration, 1981 to 2000, is a […]

Several email correspondents have reported that they have been deafened by the silence of leading Democrats on Fritz Hollings’ claim that a Jewish cabal is running American foreign policy forthe benefit of Israel.

Anytime I make any reference to the fact that George W. Bush has been pursuing some objectively liberal policies, I get slammed in the blogosphere, and also get hostile email denying that anything W. has done could be construed as liberal. What I mean by objectively liberal is simply that if the same policy was […]

I reviewed Paul Craig Roberts’ coauthored book, The New Color Line, for Reason eight years ago, and made a point similar to Matthew Yglesias’ (see Eugene’s post below): “But the emphasis on Brown’s anti-democratic tendencies begs the question of whether the South, especially the Deep South, was truly democratic before the Voting Rights Act was […]

Senator Fritz Hollings proves himself to be an utter fool and ignoramus. According to Hollings, the U.S. must have known that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Why? Because the Mossad, which Hollings seems to think is omniscient, had to have known. Moreover, if Iraq had such weapons, Israel would have taken […]

David Bernstein (after reviewing the evidence that to a large extent, George W. Bush is governing as a liberal): “Give him a phony Haavaad accent instead of phony Texas twang, a wonky college life, a less religious persona, and an attorney general other than John Ashcroft, and George Bush, in theory, would be a dream […]

If anyone has a recommendation for good NYC-area wedding band capable of playing a selection of klezmer, Israeli, and American songs, please email me at deliotb at aol dot com. DJ recommendations also accepted.

I admire those with entrepreunial spirit. I recently received the following letter from Julia Bannon, Online Marketing Manager at Harper Collins, with enclosures: “Dear David, I read your posts last week where you were collectively wondering, why dont publishers send bloggers review copies? You’re 100% right! Publishers SHOULD be sending bloggers review copies. And I […]

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