Julian Sanchez and Heather debate the important question of whether most DC men are “vanilla pansies that are scared to approach a woman in a bar.” Some DC men might take offense at the mere mention of the possibility that most of us are “vanilla pansies.” I, on the other hand, very much hope that […]
Author Archive | Ilya Somin
Why the Texas ten percent plan is worse than traditional affirmative action:
In 1996, US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held, in Hopwood v. Texas, that the use of racial preferences to achieve “diversity” in college admissions is unconstitutional. In response, the Texas state legislature adopted the “Ten Percent Plan,” a “race-neutral” way to achieve the desired proportion of minority students Texas’ state universities without […]
Questions about the Sony Reader:
I wonder if the technologically sophisticated VC readership could answer the following questions about the Sony Reader, which I’m thinking of buying for a non-English speaking relative: 1. Does the Sony Reader have the capacity to download non-English language books? Particularly Russian-language ones. 2. If the answer to 1 is “Yes,” is there in fact […]
A Common Fallacy about Atheism:
This piece by Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby (whose work I generally like) is an excellent illustration of what is probably the most common fallacy in discussions about atheism – the belief that atheism necessarily leads to moral relativism: What society loses when it discards Judeo-Christian faith and belief in G-d is something far more […]
Your Money or Your Land II – The Pacific Legal Foundation Amicus Brief in Didden v. Village of Port Chester:
Recently, I blogged about the amicus brief I filed on behalf of myself and seven other legal scholars urging the Supreme Court to hear the case of Didden v. Village of Port Chester. Didden is a Second Circuit decision that upheld the taking of property that was condemned because the owners refused to pay a […]
Knowing your Sunnis from your Shiites – Political Ignorance on the House Intelligence Committee:
Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was almost certainly right to decide against appointing former impeached federal Judge Alcee Hastings as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. However, Representative Silvestre Reyes, her new choice for the job, seems remarkably ignorant about the basics of Middle East politics – the central focus of American intelligence efforts in […]
Demographics of VC Readers:
The Quantcast website has an interesting profile of the demographics of VC readers here. Hat tip: Tom Smith. I. Findings that don’t surprise me. VC readers are disproportionately male, relatively to the internet average. VC readers are disproportionately highly educated (people with graduate degrees). II. Findings that do surprise me. The relatively high percentage of […]
Russell Kirk, Libertarianism, and Fusionism:
It is somewhat ironic that Steve Bainbridge would cite Russell Kirk’s ideas as a basis for a renewed conservative-libertarian fusionism. Kirk himself despised libertarians, whom he called “chirping sectaries” in the title of one of his essays. In that same essay, he wrote that “[t]o talk of forming a league or coalition between these two […]
The Economic Case for Scrooge:
This holiday season, it’s worth considering economist Steve Landsburg’s humorous, but also telling, defense of Scrooge: Here’s what I like about Ebenezer Scrooge: His meager lodgings were dark because darkness is cheap, and barely heated because coal is not free. His dinner was gruel, which he prepared himself. Scrooge paid no man to wait on […]
Your Money or Your Land: Didden v. Village of Port Chester – An important Post-Kelo eminent domain case:
Didden v. Village of Port Chester is potentially the most important federal public use eminent domain case since Kelo v. City of New London. I recently coauthored an amicus brief on behalf of myself and seven other legal scholars specializing in property and eminent domain, urging the Supreme Court to hear this case. The brief […]
Lessons of Pearl Harbor:
An appropriate way to mark the 65th anniversary of Pearl Harbor is to reconsider one if its key lessons: the difficulty of predicting an enemy’s strategy and tactics, and problems this poses for a primarily defensive national security strategy. As Roberta Wohlstetter showed in her classic study, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision , US intelligence […]
Building a Cheese Factory on the Moon:
Orin’s post about NASA’s plan to build a permanent base on the Moon reminds me of this quote by former Texas Senator Phil Gramm: If the Senate voted this afternoon on building a cheese factory on the Moon, I would no doubt vote against it. But if the Senate decided, in its collective lack of […]
Brink Lindsey’s Liberal-Libertarian “Fusionism”:
The full text of Brink Lindsey’s proposal for a libertarian-liberal alliance is now available free of charge here. Interestingly, he describes the proposal as one for a liberal-libertarian “fusionism,” similar to the liberal-conservative “fusionism” that began in the 1960s and is now undergoing a crisis. I agree with Lindsey that a liberal-libertarian fusion would be […]
Libertarians and Conservatives:
My discussion of the prospects for a libertarian-liberal alliance is probably incomplete without some attention to the troubled relationship between libertarians and conservatives. As I argued in the previous post, at the level of fundamental principle, libertarians have more in common with liberals than with conservatives. However, there are important countervailing factors that may make […]
Libertarians and Liberals:
Brink Lindsey’s proposal for a libertarian-liberal alliance (described here and here), has produced a lot of debate, including Todd Zywicki’s post (linked below). In my view, it is important to differentiate the theory of intellectual coherence between liberalism and libertarianism from the much more dubious possibility of a political alliance. In my view, liberal and […]