I am now blogging at Loquitur’s Letter. (See also “Blog History and Index of Posts” there.) This page provides links to what I consider to be the best of my 3,800 posts at Politics & Prosperity and other blogs. I have assigned each of my choices to one of fifteen broad topics. (Occasionally, a post is listed under more than one topic.) You may jump directly to any of the fifteen topics by clicking on one of these links:

I. The Academy, Intellectuals, and the Left
II. Affirmative Action, Race, and Immigration
III. Americana, Etc.: Movies, Music, Nature, Nostalgia, Sports, and Trivia
IV. Conservatism and Other Political Philosophies
V. The Constitution and the Rule of Law
VI. Economics: Principles and Issues
VII. Humor, Satire, and Wry Commentary
VIII. Infamous Thinkers and Political Correctness
IX. Intelligence and Psychology
X. Justice
XI. Politics, Politicians, and the Consequences of Government
XII. Science, Religion, and Philosophy
XIII. Self-Ownership (abortion, euthanasia, marriage, and other aspects of the human condition)
XIV. War and Peace
XV. Writing and Language

Posts are listed in chronological order under each heading. If you are looking for a post on a particular subject, begin with the more recent posts and work your way backward in time, by moving up the list or using the “related posts” links that are included in most of my posts.

Your explorations may lead you to posts that no longer represent my views. This is especially the case with respect to John Stuart Mill’s “harm principle,” which figures prominently in my early dissertations on libertarianism, but which I have come to see as shallow and lacking in prescriptive power. Thus my belief that true libertarianism is traditional conservatism. (For more, see “Social Norms and Liberty” and many of the posts under “IV. Conservatism and Other Political Philosophies.”)

For readings that cut across many categories, I suggest my “Not-So-Random Thoughts” series: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, and XXVI. See also “The Tenor of the Times” and “Roundup: Civil War, Solitude, Transgenderism, Academic Enemies, and Immigration“.

Now, the tour d’horizon:

I. The Academy, Intellectuals, and the Left
Like a Fish in Water
Why So Few Free-Market Economists?
Academic Bias
Intellectuals and Capitalism
“Intellectuals and Society”: A Review
The Left’s Agenda
We, the Children of the Enlightenment
The Left and Its Delusions
The Spoiled Children of Capitalism
Politics, Sophistry, and the Academy
Subsidizing the Enemies of Liberty
The Culture War
Ruminations on the Left in America
The Euphemism Conquers All
Defending the Offensive
Superiority
Whiners
Non-Judgmentalism as Leftist Condescension
An Addendum to (Asymmetrical) Ideological Warfare
Retrospective Virtue-Signalling
The Left and Violence
Four Kinds of “Liberals”
Leftist Condescension
The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy
Leftism
Leftism As Crypto-Fascism: The Google Paradigm
What Is Going On? A Stealth Revolution
“Capitalism” Is a Dirty Word
“Tribalists”, “Haters”, and Psychological Projection
Utopianism, Leftism, and Dictatorship
Pronoun Profusion
Preemptive (Cold) Civil War
Abortion, the “Me” Generation, and the Left
Whence Polarization?
Social Norms, the Left, and Social Disintegration
The Lesson of Alfie Evans
Can Left and Right Be Reconciled?
“Liberalism” and Virtue-Signaling
The Fourth Great Awakening
It’s Them or Us
Not Smart Enough
The Left-Libertarian Axis
“Free Stuff”
That “Hurtful” Betsy Ross Flag
The Age of Memes
Inherit the Wind in Retrospect
The Enlightenment’s Fatal Flaw
First They Came For …
Some Conundrums
“That’s Not Who We Are”
Conservatism, Society, and the End of America
The Paradox That Is Western Civilization
Insidious Leftism
Thinking About the Unthinkable
Intellectuals and Authoritarianism
Socialism, Communism, and Three Paradoxes
Understanding the “Resistance”: The Enemies Within
Leninthink and Left-think
Homelessness
Society, Culture, and America’s Future
The Democrats’ Master Plan to Seize America
The Allure of Leftism
Leftism in Summary
Peak Civilization?
A Footnote to “Peak Civilization?”
A Warning Too Late?
FDR’s Fascism, Underscored
What Is Natural?
Insidious Algorithms
Oh, That Deep State
It’s the 1960s Redux
Cultural Appropriation Is a Stupid Concept
“We Believe”
Some People Are More Equal than Others, Illustrated
What Happened to America?

II. Affirmative Action, Race, and Immigration
Affirmative Action: A Modest Proposal
After the Bell Curve
A Footnote . . .
Schelling and Segregation
Illogic from the Pro-Immigration Camp
Affirmative Action: Two Views from the Academy, Revisited
Race and Reason: The Victims of Affirmative Action
Race and Reason: The Achievement Gap — Causes and Implications
Evolution and Race
“Wading” into Race, Culture, and IQ
Evolution, Culture, and “Diversity”
The Harmful Myth of Inherent Equality
Nature, Nurture, and Inequality
Immigration and Crime
Immigration and Intelligence
Let’s Have That “Conversation” about Race
The IQ of Nations
Race and Social Engineering
Who’s Obsessing, Professor McWhorter?
Racism on Parade
Immigration Blues
Why Race Matters
Is Race a Social Construct?
The Complexity of Race
White Privilege
Less Discrimination Means More Discrimination
Reparations? Really?
Critical Race Theory: Where It Really Leads

III. Americana, Etc.: Movies, Music, Nature, Nostalgia, Sports, and Trivia
Speaking of Modern Art
Making Sense about Classical Music
An Addendum about Classical Music
Reveries
My Views on Classical Music, Vindicated
But It’s Not Music
Mister Hockey
Testing for Steroids
Explaining a Team’s W-L Record
The American League’s Greatest Hitters
The American League’s Greatest Hitters: Part II
Conducting, Baseball, and Longevity
Who Shot JFK, and Why?
The Passing of Red Brick Schoolhouses and a Way of Life
Baseball: The King of Team Sports
May the Best Team Lose
All-Time Hitter-Friendly Ballparks (With Particular Attention to Tiger Stadium)
A Trip to the Movies
Another Trip to the Movies
The Hall of Fame Reconsidered
Facts about Presidents (a reference page)
Great (Batting) Performances
Baseball’s Greatest and Worst Teams
Mister Hockey, R.I.P.
Baseball’s Greatest 40-and-Older Hitters
Pennant Droughts, Post-Season Play, and Seven-Game World Series
Bigger, Stronger, and Faster — But Not Quicker?
The American League’s Greatest Hitters: III
Babe Ruth and the Hot-Hand Hypothesis
Competitiveness in Major-League Baseball (III)
The Seven-Game World Series
V-J Day Stirs Memories
It’s Time to Revive 1920s Jazz
“The Little Drummer Girl” and War
End of a Generation
Inherit the Wind in Retrospect
Competitiveness in Major-League Baseball
Baseball Roundup: Pennant Droughts, Post-Season Play, and Seven-Game World Series
‘Tis the Season for Nostalgia
Fred Rogers: The Anti-Trump
Another Look into the Vanished Past
Looking for the Perfect Movie?
Something Cheerful
Images from the Past

IV. Conservatism and Other Political Philosophies
The Roots of Statism in the United States
Libertarian-Conservatives Are from the Earth, Liberals Are from the Moon
Modern Utilitarianism
The State of Nature
Libertarianism and Conservatism
Judeo-Christian Values and Liberty
Redefining Altruism
Fundamentalist Libertarians, Anarcho-Capitalists, and Self-Defense
Where Do You Draw the Line?
Moral Issues
A Paradox for Libertarians
A Non-Paradox for Libertarians
Religion and Liberty
Science, Evolution, Religion, and Liberty
Whose Incompetence Do You Trust?
Enough of Altruism
Thoughts That Liberals Should Be Thinking
More Thoughts That Liberals Should Be Thinking
The Corporation and the State
Libertarianism and Preemptive War: Part II
Anarchy: An Empty Concept
The Paradox of Libertarianism
Privacy: Variations on the Theme of Liberty
The Fatal Naïveté of Anarcho-Libertarianism
Liberty as a Social Construct
This Is Objectivism?
Social Norms and Liberty (a reference page)
Social Norms and Liberty (a followup post)A Footnote about Liberty and the Social Compact
The Adolescent Rebellion Syndrome
Liberty and Federalism
Finding Liberty
Nock Reconsidered
The Harm Principle
Footnotes to “The Harm Principle”
The Harm Principle, Again
Rights and Cosmic Justice
Liberty, Human Nature, and the State
Idiotarian Libertarians and the Non-Aggression Principle
Slopes, Ratchets, and the Death Spiral of Liberty
Postive Rights and Cosmic Justice: Part I
Positive Rights and Cosmic Justice: Part II
The Case against Genetic Engineering
Positive Rights and Cosmic Justice: Part III
A Critique of Extreme Libertarianism
Libertarian Whining about Cell Phones and Driving
The Golden Rule, for Libertarians
Positive Rights and Cosmic Justice: Part IV
Anarchistic Balderdash
Compare and Contrast
Irrationality, Suboptimality, and Voting
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong
The Political Case for Traditional Morality
Compare and Contrast, Again
Pascal’s Wager, Morality, and the State
The Fear of Consequentialism
Optimality, Liberty, and the Golden Rule
The People’s Romance
Objectivism: Tautologies in Search of Reality
Morality and Consequentialism
On Liberty
Greed, Cosmic Justice, and Social Welfare
Positive Rights and Cosmic Justice
Fascism with a “Friendly” Face
Democracy and Liberty
The Interest-Group Paradox
Inventing “Liberalism”
Civil Society and Homosexual “Marriage”
What Is Conservatism?
Utilitarianism vs. Liberty
Fascism and the Future of America
The Indivisibility of Economic and Social Liberty
Law and Liberty
Negative Rights
Negative Rights, Social Norms, and the Constitution
Tocqueville’s Prescience
Accountants of the Soul
Invoking Hitler
The Unreality of Objectivism
“Natural Rights” and Consequentialism
Rawls Meets Bentham
The Left
Our Enemy, the State
Pseudo-Libertarian Sophistry vs. True Libertarianism
What Are “Natural Rights”?
The Golden Rule and the State
Libertarian Conservative or Conservative Libertarian?
Bounded Liberty: A Thought Experiment
Evolution, Human Nature, and “Natural Rights”
More Pseudo-Libertarianism
The Meaning of Liberty
Positive Liberty vs. Liberty
On Self-Ownership and Desert
Understanding Hayek
Corporations, Unions, and the State
Facets of Liberty
Burkean Libertarianism
Rights: Source, Applicability, How Held
What Is Libertarianism?
Nature Is Unfair
True Libertarianism, One More Time
Human Nature, Liberty, and Rationalism
Utilitarianism and Psychopathy
A Declaration and Defense of My Prejudices about Governance
Libertarianism and Morality
Libertarianism and Morality: A Footnote
What Is Bleeding-Heart Libertarianism?
Liberty, Negative Rights, and Bleeding Hearts
Cato, the Kochs, and a Fluke
Why Conservatism Works
A Man for No Seasons
Bleeding-Heart Libertarians = Left-Statists
Not Guilty of Libertarian Purism
Liberty and Society
Tolerance on the Left
The Eclipse of “Old America”
Genetic Kinship and Society
Liberty as a Social Construct: Moral Relativism?
Defending Liberty against (Pseudo) Libertarians
The Fallacy of the Reverse-Mussolini Fallacy
Defining Liberty
Getting It Almost Right
The Social Animal and the “Social Contract”
The Futile Search for “Natural Rights”
The Pseudo-Libertarian Temperament
Parsing Political Philosophy (II)
Modern Liberalism as Wishful Thinking
Getting Liberty Wrong
Romanticizing the State
Libertarianism and the State
Egoism and Altruism
My View of Libertarianism
Sober Reflections on “Charlie Hebdo”
“The Great Debate”: Not So Great
No Wonder Liberty Is Disappearing
The Principles of Actionable Harm
More About Social Norms and Liberty
Superiority
The War on Conservatism
Old America, New America, and Anarchy
The Authoritarianism of Modern Liberalism, and the Conservative Antidote
Society, Polarization, and Dissent
Social Justice vs. Liberty
Does Liberty Still Have a Fighting Chance?
Economically Liberal, Socially Conservative
The Left and “the People”
Why Conservatives Shouldn’t Compromise
The Harm Principle Revisited: Mill Conflates Society and State
Liberty and Social Norms Re-examined
Natural Law, Natural Rights, and the Real World
FDR and Fascism: More Data
Natural Law and Natural Rights Revisited
Rescuing Conservatism
If Men Were Angels
Liberty in Chains
Libertarianism, Conservatism, and Political Correctness
Altruism, One More Time
“Liberalism” and Leftism
Disposition and Ideology
Altruism, Self-Interest, and Voting
My View of Mill, Endorsed
Rights, Liberty, the Golden Rule, and Leviathan
Suicide or Destiny?
Conservatism vs. Ideology
O.J.’s Glove and the Enlightenment
James Burnham’s Misplaced Optimism
A Flawed Ideological Taxonomy
True Populism
Libertarianism’s Fatal Flaw
The Golden Rule and Social Norms
The Left-Libertarian Axis
Rooted in the Real World of Real People
Consequentialism
Why Populism Is Popular
Conservatism, Society, and the End of America
Conservatism’s Fundamental Dilemma: Markets vs. Morality
Conservatism vs. Leftism and “Libertarianism” on the Moral Dimension
Free Markets and Democracy
“Libertarianism”, the Autism Spectrum, and Ayn Rand
Tragic Capitalism
A Paradox for Liberals
This Is Objectivism? Another Sequel
Political Ideologies
Conservatism vs. Libertarianism
Rawls vs. Reality
The Subtle Authoritarianism of the “Liberal Order”
The Shallowness of Secular Ethical Systems
Can Libertarianism and Conservatism Be Reconciled?
Leftism in Summary
Why Is Capitalism Under Attack from the Right?
Can Libertarianism and Conservatism Be Reconciled? A Footnote
Ruthless Reason
Wicked Problems: The Pretense of Rationality
Whither (Wither) Classical Liberalism and America?
Peak Civilization?
A Footnote to “Peak Civilization?”
How Conservatives Should Think About the Constitution
FDR’s Fascism, Underscored
Extreme Libertarianism vs. the Accountable State
A Few Thoughts about Anarchy
The Common Good, or Rethinking Liberty
Anarchy: A Footnote
Another Footnote about Anarchy
“Libertarians Suck”
Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism, and America’s Present Condition
Is Anarchy a Viable Concept?
Centrism: The Path to Dystopia
What Do Wokesters Want?
The Poison of Ideology
Does Liberalism Destroy Liberty?

V. The Constitution and the Rule of Law
Unintended Irony from a Few Framers
Social Security Is Unconstitutional
What Is the Living Constitution?
The Legality of Teaching Intelligent Design
The Legality of Teaching Intelligent Design: Part II
Law, Liberty, and Abortion
An Answer to Judicial Supremacy?
Final (?) Words about Preemption and the Constitution
More Final (?) Words about Preemption and the Constitution
Who Are the Parties to the Constitutional Contract?
The Slippery Slope of Constitutional Revisionism
The Ruinous Despotism of Democracy
How to Think about Secession
Secession
A New, New Constitution
Secession Redux
A Declaration of Independence
First Principles
The Constitution: Original Meaning, Corruption, and Restoration
The Unconstitutionality of the Individual Mandate
Does the Power to Tax Give Congress Unlimited Power?
Does Congress Have the Power to Regulate Inactivity?
Substantive Due Process and the Limits of Privacy
The Southern Secession Reconsidered
Abortion and the Fourteenth Amendment
Obamacare: Neither Necessary nor Proper
Privacy Is Not Sacred
Our Perfect, Perfect Constitution
Reclaiming Liberty throughout the Land
Obamacare, Slopes, Ratchets, and the Death-Spiral of Liberty
Another Thought or Two about the Obamacare Decision
Secession for All Seasons
Restoring Constitutional Government: The Way Ahead
“We the People” and Big Government
How Libertarians Ought to Think about the Constitution
Abortion Rights and Gun Rights
The States and the Constitution
Getting “Equal Protection” Right
How to Protect Property Rights and Freedom of Association and Expression
The Principles of Actionable Harm
Judicial Supremacy: Judicial Tyranny
Does the Power to Tax Give Congress Unlimited Power? (II)
The Beginning of the End of Liberty in America
Substantive Due Process, Liberty of Contract, and States’ “Police Power”
U.S. Supreme Court: Lines of Succession (a reference page)
Why Liberty of Contract Matters
Judicial Supremacy: Judicial Tyranny
The Answer to Judicial Supremacy
There’s More to It Than Religious Liberty
Turning Points
Equal Protection in Principle and Practice
A Resolution of Secession
Polarization and De-facto Partition
Freedom of Speech and the Long War for Constitutional Governance
Equality
Academic Freedom, Freedom of Speech, and the Demise of Civility
Restoring the Contract Clause
Preemptive (Cold) Civil War
The Framers, Mob Rule, and a Fatal Error
The Constitution: Myths and Realities
Freedom of Speech: Getting It Right
Suicide or Destiny?
Freedom of Speech, to What End?
The Polarized Court
Nullification and Secession
Judging the Justices: The Thomas Standard
The Constitution vs. Reality
How Roe v. Wade Could Die
Power Is Power
If The New York Times Is Worried …
The New York Times Has More to Worry About
The New York Times Has More to Worry About, Part 2
The Citizenship Question
Vive le collège électoral!
Liberty: Constitutional Obligations and the Role of Religion
Peak Civilization?
A Footnote to “Peak Civilization?”
How Conservatives Should Think About the Constitution
Breakup or Takeover?
Less Discrimination Means More Discrimination
The Supreme Court: A Scorecard
A Congress of Unlimited Power?
The Great Breakup — I Hope
Texas v. Pennsylvania: The Supremes Cut and Run
The End of Freedom of Speech?
State Action As Private Action
A National Divorce is the Only Solution

V. Economics: Principles and Issues
Economics: A Survey (a reference page that gives an organized tour of relevant posts, many of which are also listed below)
Fear of the Free Market — Part I
Fear of the Free Market — Part II
Fear of the Free Market — Part III
Trade Deficit Hysteria
Why We Deserve What We Earn
Who Decides Who’s Deserving?
The Main Causes of Prosperity
That Mythical, Magical Social Security Trust Fund
Social Security, Myth and Reality
Nonsense and Sense about Social Security
More about Social Security
Social Security Privatization and the Stock Market
Oh, That Mythical Trust Fund!
The Real Meaning of the National Debt
Socialist Calculation and the Turing Test
Social Security: The Permanent Solution
The Social Welfare Function
Libertarian Paternalism
A Libertarian Paternalist’s Dream World
Talk Is Cheap
Giving Back to the Community
The Short Answer to Libertarian Paternalism
Second-Guessing, Paternalism, Parentalism, and Choice
Another Thought about Libertarian Paternalism
Why Government Spending Is Inherently Inflationary
Ten Commandments of Economics
More Commandments of Economics
Capitalism, Liberty, and Christianity
Risk and Regulation
Back-Door Paternalism
Liberty, General Welfare, and the State
Another Voice Against the New Paternalism
Monopoly and the General Welfare
The Causes of Economic Growth
Slippery Paternalists
The Importance of Deficits
It’s the Spending, Stupid!
There’s More to Income than Money
Science, Axioms, and Economics
Mathematical Economics
The Last(?) Word about Income Inequality
Why “Net Neutrality” Is a Bad Idea
The Feds and “Libertarian Paternalism”
The Anti-Phillips Curve
Status, Spite, Envy, and Income Redistribution
Economics: The Dismal (Non) Science
A Further Note about “Libertarian” Paternalism
Apropos Paternalism
Where’s My Nobel?
Toward a Capital Theory of Value
The Laffer Curve, “Fiscal Responsibility,” and Economic Growth
Stability Isn’t Everything
Income and Diminishing Marginal Utility
What Happened to Personal Responsibility?
The Causes of Economic Growth
Economic Growth since WWII
A Short Course in Economics
Addendum to a Short Course in Economics
Monopoly: Private Is Better than Public
The “Big Five” and Economic Performance
Does the Minimum Wage Increase Unemployment?
Rationing and Health Care
The Perils of Nannyism: The Case of Obamacare
More about the Perils of Obamacare
Health-Care Reform: The Short of It
Trade
Toward a Risk-Free Economy
Enough of “Social Welfare”
A True Flat Tax
The Case of the Purblind Economist
How the Great Depression Ended
Why Outsourcing Is Good: A Simple Lesson for “Liberal” Yuppies
Microeconomics and Macroeconomics
The Illusion of Prosperity and Stability
The Deficit Commission’s Deficit of Understanding
“Buy Local”
“Net Neutrality”
The Bowles-Simpson Report
The Bowles-Simpson Band-Aid
Competition Shouldn’t Be a Dirty Word
Subjective Value: A Proof by Example
The Stagnation Thesis
Taxing the Rich
More about Taxing the Rich
Money, Credit, and Economic Fluctuations
A Keynesian Fantasy Land
“Tax Expenditures” Are Not Expenditures
The Keynesian Fallacy and Regime Uncertainty
Does “Pent Up” Demand Explain the Post-War Recovery?
Creative Destruction, Reification, and Social Welfare
What Free-Rider Problem?
Why the “Stimulus” Failed to Stimulate
The Arrogance of (Some) Economists
The “Jobs Speech” That Obama Should Have Given
Say’s Law, Government, and Unemployment
Regime Uncertainty and the Great Recession
Regulation as Wishful Thinking
Extreme Economism
We Owe It to Ourselves
In Defense of the 1%
Lay My (Regulatory) Burden Down
Irrational Rationality
The Burden of Government
Economic Growth Since World War II
The Rationing Fallacy
Government in Macroeconomic Perspective
Keynesianism: Upside-Down Economics in the Collectivist Cause
How High Should Taxes Be?
The 80-20 Rule, Illustrated
Economic Horror Stories: The Great “Demancipation” and Economic Stagnation
Baseball Statistics and the Consumer Price Index
Why Are Interest Rates So Low?
Vulgar Keynesianism and Capitalism
America’s Financial Crisis Is Now
“Ensuring America’s Freedom of Movement”: A Review
“Social Insurance” Isn’t Insurance — Nor Is Obamacare
The Keynesian Multiplier: Phony Math
The True Multiplier
Discounting in the Public Sector
Some Inconvenient Facts about Income Inequality
Mass (Economic) Hysteria: Income Inequality and Related Themes
Social Accounting: A Tool of Social Engineering
Alienation
Playing the Social Security Trust Fund Shell Game
Income Inequality and Economic Growth
A Case for Redistribution, Not Made
McCloskey on Piketty
The Rahn Curve Revisited
The Slow-Motion Collapse of the Economy
Nature, Nurture, and Inequality
Understanding Investment Bubbles
The Real Burden of Government
Diminishing Marginal Utility and the Redistributive Urge
Capitalism, Competition, Prosperity, and Happiness
Further Thoughts about the Keynesian Multiplier
The Essence of Economics
Economics and Science
Economists As Scientists
Mathematical Economics
Economic Modeling: A Case of Unrewarded Complexity
Today’s Lesson in Economics: How to Think about War
Economics from the Bottom Up
Unorthodox Economics: 1. What Is Economics?
Unorthodox Economics: 2. Pitfalls
Unorthodox Economics: 3. What Is Scientific about Economics?
Unorthodox Economics 4: A Parable of Political Economy
The Public-Goods Myth
Thaler on Discounting
Big Government and Disguised Unemployment
Rethinking Free Trade
Rethinking Free Trade II
Revisiting the Laffer Curve
Unorthodox Economics: 5. Economic Progress, Microeconomics, and Microeconomics
Rethinking Free Trade III
Macroeconomic Modeling Revisited
Shiller’s Folly
“Free Stuff”
Thaler’s Fatuousness
Megaprojects, Cost-Benefit Analysis, and “Social Welfare”
Free Markets and Democracy
Tragic Capitalism
Putting In Some Good Words for Monopoly
Homelessness
Why Are Interest Rates So Low? (II)
Shaky Trade Talk
Why Is Capitalism Under Attack from the Right?
Economics Explained — Part I: What Is Economics About?
Economics Explained — Part II: Economic Principles in Perspective
Economics Explained — Part III: The Principles Illustrated
Further Reflections on the Keynesian Multiplier
Economics Explained — Part IV: Loose Ends and Finishing Touches
Control vs. Competition: Striking the Balance
Recession, Depression, or Service Interruption?
Why the UBI Is a Bad Idea
Which Labor Supply Curve?
Natural Experiments in the Effect of Party Politics on Economic Performance
The False Promise of the Fiscal Multiplier
Why Should I Worry about Inflation?
The Minimum Wage Revisited

VII. Humor, Satire, and Wry Commentary
Political Parlance
Some Management Tips
Ten-Plus Commandments of Liberalism, er, Progressivism
To Pay or Not to Pay
The Ghost of Impeachments Past Presents “The Trials of William Jefferson Whatsit”
Getting It Perfect
His Life As a Victim
Bah, Humbug!
PC Madness
The Seven Faces of Blogging
DWI
Wordplay
Trans-Gendered Names
More Names
Stuff White (Liberal Yuppie) People Like
Driving and Politics
“Men’s Health”
I’ve Got a LIttle List
Driving and Politics (2)
A Sideways Glance at Military Strategy
A Sideways Glance at the Cabinet
A Sideways Glance at Politicians’ Memoirs
Daylight Saving Time Doesn’t Kill
Amazon and Austin
Driving Is an IQ Test
Screen Shots: The Glass Castle, Victoria, and The Crown
The Renaming Mania Hits a New Low
Let the Punishment Deter the Crime
Knot for Me
“Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”
I Hate to Hear Millennials Speak

VIII. Infamous Thinkers and Political Correctness
Sunstein at the Volokh Conspiracy
More from Sunstein
Cass Sunstein’s Truly Dangerous Mind
An (Imaginary) Interview with Cass Sunstein
Professor Krugman Flunks Economics
Peter Singer’s Fallacy
Slippery Sunstein
Sunstein and Executive Power
Nock Reconsidered
In Defense of Ann Coulter
Goodbye, Mr. Pitts
Our Miss Brooks
How to Combat Beauty-ism
The Politically Correct Cancer: Another Weapon in the War on Straight White Males
Asymmetrical (Ideological) Warfare
Social Justice
Peter Presumes to Preach
More Social Justice
Luck-Egalitarianism and Moral Luck
Empathy Is Overrated
In Defense of Wal-Mart
An Economist’s Special Pleading: Affirmative Action for the Ugly
Another Entry in the Sunstein Saga
Obesity and Statism (Richard Posner)
Obama’s Big Lie
The Sunstein Effect Is Alive and Well in the White House
Political Correctness vs. Civility
IQ, Political Correctness, and America’s Present Condition
Sorkin’s Left-Wing Propaganda Machine
Baseball or Soccer? David Brooks Misunderstands Life
Sunstein the Fatuous
Tolerance
Good Riddance
The Gaystapo at Work
The Gaystapo and Islam
The Perpetual Nudger
Brandeis’s Ignorance
Babbling Brooks
Andrew Cuomo’s Fatuous Casuistry
H.L. Mencken’s Final Legacy
The Problem with Political Correctness
Mencken’s Pearl of Wisdom
Richard Thaler, Nobel Laureate
Thaler’s Non-Revolution in Economics
Another (Big) Problem with “Nudging”
The Ken Burns Apology Tour Continues
Thaler on Discounting
A Bobo in Cloud-Cuckoo Land
The Fatuous David Brooks Rides Again
Will Wilkinson
Timothy Sandefur …
Scott Adams on Guns
No Tears for Cass Sunstein

IX. Intelligence and Psychology
Conservatism, Libertarianism, and “The Authoritarian Personality”
The F Scale, Revisited
The Psychologist Who Played God
Intelligence, Personality, Politics, and Happiness
Intelligence as a Dirty Word
Intelligence and Intuition
Nonsense about Presidents, IQ, and War
IQ, Political Correctness, and America’s Present Condition
Alienation
Greed, Conscience, and Big Government
Tolerance
Privilege, Power, and Hypocrisy
Intelligence, Assortative Mating, and Social Engineering
The IQ of Nations
Hayek’s Anticipatory Account of Consciousness
The Internet-Media-Academic Complex vs. Real Life
More about Intelligence
Institutional Bias
Nature, Nurture, and Leniency
Some Notes about Psychology and Intelligence
The Midwest Is a State of Mind
How’s Your (Implicit) Attitude?
Jerks and Psychopaths
Selected Writings about Intelligence
The Fourth Great Awakening
Friendship and Personality
The Learning Curve and the Flynn Effect
An Antidote to Alienation
The Unique “Me”
Has Humanity Reached Peak Intelligence?
White Privilege
Intuition vs. Rationality
Fifty-Two Weeks on the Learning Curve
Reflections on Aging and Social Disengagement

X. Justice
I’ll Never Understand the Insanity Defense
Does Capital Punishment Deter Homicide?
Libertarian Twaddle about the Death Penalty
A Crime Is a Crime
Crime and Punishment
Abortion and Crime
Saving the Innocent?
Saving the Innocent?: Part II
A Useful Precedent
More on Abortion and Crime
More Punishment Means Less Crime
More About Crime and Punishment
More Punishment Means Less Crime: A Footnote
Clear Thinking about the Death Penalty
Let the Punishment Fit the Crime
Cell Phones and Driving: Liberty vs. Life
Another Argument for the Death Penalty
Less Punishment Means More Crime
Crime, Explained
Clear Thinking about the Death Penalty
What Is Justice?
Myopic Moaning about the War on Drugs
Saving the Innocent
Why Stop at the Death Penalty?
A Case for Perpetual Copyrights and Patents
The Least Evil Option
Legislating Morality
Legislating Morality (II)
Round Up the Usual Suspects
Left-Libertarians, Obama, and the Zimmerman Case
Free Will, Crime, and Punishment
Stop, Frisk, and Save Lives
Poverty, Crime, and Big Government
Crime Revisited
A Cop-Free World?
Did Nixon Get a Bum Rap?
Believe Some Persons

XI. Politics, Politicians, and the Consequences of Government
Starving the Beast
Torture and Morality
Starving the Beast, Updated
Starving the Beast: Readings
Presidential Legacies
The Rational Voter?
FDR and Fascism
The “Southern Strategy”
An FDR Reader
The “Southern Strategy”: A Postscript
The Modern Presidency: A Tour of American History
Politicizing Economic Growth
The End of Slavery in the United States
I Want My Country Back
What Happened to the Permanent Democrat Majority?
More about the Permanent Democrat Majority
Undermining the Free Society
Government Failure: An Example
The Public-School Swindle
PolitiFact Whiffs on Social Security
The Destruction of Society in the Name of “Society”
About Democracy
Externalities and Statism
Taxes: Theft or Duty?
Society and the State
Don’t Use the “S” Word When the “F” Word Will Do
The Capitalist Paradox Meets the Interest-Group Paradox
Is Taxation Slavery?
A Contrarian View of Universal Suffrage
The Hidden Tragedy of the Assassination of Lincoln
America: Past, Present, and Future
IQ, Political Correctness, and America’s Present Condition
Progressive Taxation Is Alive and Well in the U.S. of A.
“Social Insurance” Isn’t Insurance — Nor Is Obamacare
“We the People” and Big Government
The Culture War
The Fall and Rise of American Empire
O Tempora O Mores!
Presidential Treason
A Home of One’s Own
The Criminality and Psychopathy of Statism
Surrender? Hell No!
Social Accounting: A Tool of Social Engineering
Playing the Social Security Trust Fund Shell Game
Two-Percent Tyranny
A Sideways Glance at Public “Education”
Greed, Conscience, and Big Government
The Many-Sided Curse of Very Old Age
The Slow-Motion Collapse of the Economy
How to Eradicate the Welfare State, and How Not to Do It
“Blue Wall” Hype
Does Obama Love America?
Obamanomics in Action
Democracy, Human Nature, and the Future of America
1963: The Year Zero
Society
How Government Subverts Social Norms
Turning Points
The Twilight’s Last Gleaming?
“Fairness”
My Platform
How America Has Changed
Civil War?
The “H” Word, the Left, and Donald Trump
The Hypocrisy of “Local Control”
Cost Disease in the Quasi-Government Sector
Red-Diaper Babies and Enemies Within
Suicidal Despair and the “War on Whites”
Death of a Nation
The Invention of Rights
The Danger of Marginal Thinking
Politics Trumps Economics
The Dumbing-Down of Public Schools
“Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”
Mass Murder: Reaping What Was Sown
The South, Racism, and the GOP
The American Electorate’s “Squishy Center”
The Decline of Collegiality
Do We “Belong” to Government?
The Fickle Electorate
Not with a Bang
The Fall of America
Why Government Screws Up
Did Nixon Get a Bum Rap?
Another Take on the State of America
Impeachment Tit for Tat
The Modern Presidency: From TR to DJT
Society, Culture, and America’s Future
“Solomon” Horowitz Cuts the Baby in Half
Impeaching the President: Profiles in Partisanship
Peak Civilization?
Is the GAO Impartial?
A Footnote to “Peak Civilization?”
A Footnote to “Is the GAO Impartial?”
FDR’s Fascism, Underscored
It’s the 1960s Redux
Election 2020: Liberty Is at Stake
Election 2020: Some Betting Propositions
Election 2020 and Occam’s Razor
Here We Go …
Presidents As Regulators: From Ike to The Donald
How to Reform Election Laws
Trump: Symbol of Resentment?
The Not-So-Distant Future of the U.S. and Israel
Biden in the Land of Oz
Liberty vs. Security
The Coronavirus: A Case Study in the Destructiveness of Government Action?
More Thoughts about the Marketplace of Ideas
Coronavirus Update: The Control Freaks in the U.S. (and Elsewhere) Blew It

XII. Science, Religion, and Philosophy
Same Old Story, Same Old Song and Dance
Atheism, Religion, and Science
The Limits of Science
Beware of Irrational Atheism
The Creation Model
Free Will: A Proof by Example?
Science in Politics, Politics in Science
Evolution and Religion
Science, Evolution, Religion, and Liberty
What’s Wrong with Game Theory
Is “Nothing” Possible?
Pseudo-Science in the Service of Political Correctness
Science’s Anti-Scientific Bent
Flow
Science, Axioms, and Economics
The Purpose-Driven Life
The Tenth Dimension
The Universe . . . Four Possibilities
Atheism, Religion, and Science Redux
“Warmism”: The Myth of Anthropogenic Global Warming
More Evidence against Anthropogenic Global Warming
Yet More Evidence against Anthropogenic Global Warming
Pascal’s Wager, Morality, and the State
Achilles and the Tortoise: A False Paradox
The Greatest Mystery
Modeling Is Not Science
Freedom of Will and Political Action
Fooled by Non-Randomness
Randomness Is Over-Rated
Anthropogenic Global Warming Is Dead, Just Not Buried Yet
Beware the Rare Event
Landsburg Is Half-Right
What Is Truth?
The Improbability of Us
Wrong Again
More Thoughts about Evolutionary Teleology
A Digression about Probability and Existence
Evolution and the Golden Rule
A Digression about Special Relativity
More about Probability and Existence
Existence and Creation
Probability, Existence, and Creation
Temporal and Spatial Agreement
In Defense of Subjectivism
The Atheism of the Gaps
The Ideal as a False and Dangerous Standard
Demystifying Science
Religion on the Left
Analysis for Government Decision-Making: Hemi-Science, Hemi-Demi-Science, and Sophistry
Scientism, Evolution, and the Meaning of Life
Luck and Baseball, One More Time
Are the Natural Numbers Supernatural?
The Candle Problem: Balderdash Masquerading as Science
Mysteries: Sacred and Profane
More about Luck and Baseball
Combinatorial Play
Something from Nothing?
Pseudoscience, “Moneyball,” and Luck
Something or Nothing
Understanding the Monty Hall Problem
My Metaphysical Cosmology
Further Thoughts about Metaphysical Cosmology
The Fallacy of Human Progress
Nothingness
The Glory of the Human Mind
Pinker Commits Scientism
Spooky Numbers, Evolution, and Intelligent Design
AGW: The Death Knell
Mind, Cosmos, and Consciousness
The Limits of Science (II)
Not Over the Hill
The Pretence of Knowledge
“The Science Is Settled”
The Compleat Monty Hall Problem
“Settled Science” and the Monty Hall Problem
Evolution, Culture, and “Diversity”
Some Thoughts about Probability
Rationalism, Empiricism, and Scientific Knowledge
AGW in Austin?
My War on the Misuse of Probability
Ty Cobb and the State of Science
Understanding Probability: Pascal’s Wager and Catastrophic Global Warming
Revisiting the “Marketplace” of Ideas
The Technocratic Illusion
The Precautionary Principle and Pascal’s Wager
AGW in Austin? (II)
Is Science Self-Correcting?
“Feelings, Nothing More than Feelings”
Taleb’s Ruinous Rhetoric
Words Fail Us
Fine-Tuning in a Wacky Wrapper
Is Consciousness an Illusion?
Beating Religion with the Wrong End of the Stick
Quantum Mechanics and Free Will
“Science” vs. Science: The Case of Evolution, Race, and Intelligence
Modeling Revisited
Bayesian Irrationality
The Fragility of Knowledge
Global-Warming Hype
Pattern-Seeking
Babe Ruth and the Hot-Hand Hypothesis
Deduction, Induction, and Knowledge
A (Long) Footnote about Science
Further Thoughts about Probability
Religion, Creation, and Morality
Luck: The Loser’s Excuse
The Balderdash Chronicles
The Probability That Something Will Happen
Analytical and Scientific Arrogance
The Pretence of Knowledge
Wildfires and “Climate Change”
Atheistic Scientism Revisited
Why I Don’t Believe in “Climate Change”
Ford, Kavanaugh, and Probability
Through a Glass Darkly
Beware of Outliers
Modeling Is Not Science: Another Demonstration
Ad-Hoc Hypothesizing and Data Mining
Certainty about Uncertainty
Expressing Certainty (or Uncertainty)
More about Modeling and Science
More Unsettled Science
Climate Hysteria
“Human Nature” by David Berlinksi: A Review
Ruthless Reason
Wicked Problems: The Pretense of Rationality
Existence and Knowledge
Preliminary Thoughts about “Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology”
What Is Natural?
COVID-19 in the United States
Evaluating an Atheistic Argument
Climate Hysteria: An Update
UHI in Austin Revisited
Contagion Nation?
“It’s Tough to Make Predictions, Especially about the Future”
CO2 Fail
The “Pause” Redux: The View from Austin
Modeling and Science Revisited
The 96-Year Pause
Is Scientific Skepticism Irrational?
More Thoughts about the “Marketplace of Ideas”
CO2 Fail, Revisited
Coronavirus Update: The Control Freaks in the U.S. (and Elsewhere) Blew It

XIII. Self-Ownership (abortion, euthanasia, marriage, and other aspects of the human condition)
Feminist Balderdash
Libertarianism, Marriage, and the True Meaning of Family Values
Law, Liberty, and Abortion
Privacy, Autonomy, and Responsibility
Parenting, Religion, Culture, and Liberty
The Case against Genetic Engineering
A “Person” or a “Life”?
A Wrong-Headed Take on Abortion
In Defense of Marriage
Crimes against Humanity
Abortion and Logic
The Myth That Same-Sex “Marriage” Causes No Harm
Abortion, Doublethink, and Left-Wing Blather
Abortion, “Gay Rights,” and Liberty
Dan Quayle Was (Almost) Right
The Most Disgusting Thing I’ve Read Today
Posner the Fatuous
Marriage: Privatize It and Revitalize It
The Transgender Fad and Its Consequences
Another Angle on Alienation The Invalid “Viability” Argument for Abortion
Andrew Sullivan almost Gets It
Abortion, the “Me” Generation, and the Left
What about the “Gay Gene”?
Regarding Napoleon Chagnon
A Word to the Unwise

XIV. War and Peace
Getting It Wrong: Civil Libertarians and the War on Terror (A Case Study)
Libertarian Nay-Saying on Foreign and Defense Policy, Revisited
Right On! For Libertarian Hawks Only
Understanding Libertarian Hawks
Defense, Anarcho-Capitalist Style
The Illogic of Knee-Jerk Civil Liberties Advocates
Getting It All Wrong about the Risk of Terrorism
Conservative Revisionism, Conservative Backlash, or Conservative Righteousness?
But Wouldn’t Warlords Take Over?
Sorting Out the Libertarian Hawks and Doves
Shall We All Hang Separately?
September 11: A Remembrance
September 11: A Postscript for “Peace Lovers”
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Non-Aggression?
NSA “Eavesdropping”: The Last Word (from Me)
Riots, Culture, and the Final Showdown
Thomas Woods and War
In Which I Reply to the Executive Editor of The New York Times
“Peace for Our Time”
Taking on Torture
Conspiracy Theorists’ Cousins
September 11: Five Years On
How to View Defense Spending
The Best Defense . . .
A Skewed Perspective on Terrorism
Not Enough Boots: The Why of It
Here We Go Again
“The War”: Final Grade
Torture, Revisited
Waterboarding, Torture, and Defense
Liberalism and Sovereignty
The Media, the Left, and War
Torture
Getting It Wrong and Right about Iran
The McNamara Legacy: A Personal Perspective
The “Predator War” and Self-Defense
The National Psyche and Foreign Wars
Inside-Outside
A Moralist’s Moral Blindness
A Grand Strategy for the United States
The Folly of Pacifism
Rating America’s Wars
Transnationalism and National Defense
The Next 9/11?
The Folly of Pacifism, Again
September 20, 2001: Hillary Clinton Signals the End of “Unity”
Patience as a Tool of Strategy
The War on Terror, As It Should Have Been Fought
The Cuban Missile Crisis, Revisited
Preemptive War
Preemptive War and Iran
Some Thoughts and Questions about Preemptive War
Defense as an Investment in Liberty and Prosperity
Riots, Culture, and the Final Showdown (revisited)
The Barbarians Within and the State of the Union
The World Turned Upside Down
Utilitarianism and Torture
Defense Spending: One More Time
Walking the Tightrope Reluctantly
The President’s Power to Kill Enemy Combatants
My Defense of the A-Bomb
Pacifism
Today’s Lesson in Economics: How to Think about War
Presidents and War
LBJ’s Dereliction of Duty
Terrorism Isn’t an Accident
The Ken Burns Apology Tour Continues
Planning for the Last War
A Rearview Look at the Invasion of Iraq and the War on Terror
Preemptive War Revisited
It’s a MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD World
The Folly of Pacifism (III)
MAD, Again
“MAD, Again”: A Footnote
More MADness: Mistaking Bureaucratic Inertia for Strategy
World War II As an Aberration
Reflections on the “Feel Good” War
American Foreign Policy: Feckless No More?
The Iraq War in Retrospect
The MADness of It All
The Way Ahead?
The Meaning of the War in Ukraine

XV. Writing and Language
Punctuation
“Hopefully” Arrives
Hopefully, This Post Will Be Widely Read
Why Prescriptivism?
A Guide to the Pronunciation of General American English
Rules of Writing to Disregard?
Preposition Proliferation
In Defense of the Oxford Comma
On Writing (a comprehensive essay about writing, which covers some of the material presented in other posts in this section)