Blog Posts


Playing The Race Card In Connecticut

Connecticut takes pride in creation of the nation’s first public defender system. Representation of the indigent accused of crimes is important work. Why, then, does the state seem content to let this proud legacy collapse amid the ugliest sort of squabbling?
In recent...

The Unwinding of Ye

I've now viewed Ye's appearance on Alex Jones in it its entirety. (You can view it on Banned.Video; as of this writing, it has been viewed almost 5.3 million times.) Herewith a report.
I won't call the appearance an interview of Ye by Alex; neither will I call it an interview of Alex and...

Ye, Alex Jones and Infowars, Part I

I've listened to about half of the interview of Ye by Alex Jones on Infowars. (It has already been banned from most sites. You can find it on banned.video, where, as of this morning, it has been viewed about 4.2 million times.)
I don't know what to make of it.
Alex seems star-struck and...

Election Denialism and "White Supremacism"

The other day I raised what I consider to be the dishonest rhetoric involving white supremacism. If you're white and you disagree with a person of color, some other emergent and privileged identity, or the progressive agenda embracing diversity for diversity's sake, you are immediately smeared as a...

The Confusing Rhetoric of "White Supremacism"

I keep running into the following in books and articles I read about current affairs. An author writes about critics of a current social policy or tendency, and he characterizes the criticism as "white supremacist." There's something dishonest about the move that I can't quite put my finger...

Let's Deconstruct Critical Race Theory

Rhetorical choices define our options in life. What you see conceptually is, in a sense, what you can aim at in terms of strategic behavioral choices. And so, in this era of so-called “Critical Race Theory,” I say we lay bare the choices the theorists are making. It’s...

Trump v. 230: Silly Legal Theories, But Right Target

Donald Trump’s suits against Facebook and Twitter are, unfortunately, about as likely to succeed as were his challenges to the 2020 election. In the election cases, his claims appeared to be frivolous. The social media complaints are far from frivolous, at least in intent. But the legal...

Death Comes Calling -- Again

Many years ago, a colleague of mine started a gruesome game, he called it death bingo. At the beginning of each year, he’d invite folks to submit names into a pool. At year’s end, the person who forecast the most deaths won.
I never played the game. It struck...

Consent, Parental Power and Childhood Vaccination

Among the world’s mysteries is the transformation of naked power into authority. Yes, from time immemorial, there have been those with the means to impose their will on others. But we say, or at least we used to say, that when the state acts, its agents possess not mere power, but...

Yo, Can You Spare Forty Acres And A Mule?

It was obvious to me one year ago that the pandemic would yield a time of extraordinary social tumult. Indeed, just over one year ago, I wrote in these pages about the general strike theory of the pandemic, how the viral contagion would be turned into an occasion to try to recast the...

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