The Second Great Age of Political Correctness
By Greg Lukianoff. "The P.C. culture of the '80s and '90s didn't decline and fall. It just went underground. Now it's back." Excellent and thorough by the President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
Posted December 13, 2021
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Marxism/Socialism, A Sociopathic Philosophy Conceived in Gross Error and Ignorance, Culminating in Economic Chaos, Enslavement, Terror, and Mass Murder: A Contribution to Its Death
By George Reisman. An exhaustive refutation of all tenets of Marxism and socialism, including in particular the labor theory of value, followed by a presentation of Reisman's answer to the labor theory, the primacy of profits. Available on Kindle here, or in paperback.
Posted September 7, 2018
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The University of Chicago Statement on Freedom of Expression
"As Robert M. Hutchins observed, without a vibrant commitment to free and open inquiry, a university ceases to be a university. The University of Chicago’s long-standing commitment to this principle lies at the very core of our University’s greatness. That is our inheritance, and it is our promise to the future." Continue reading here.
Posted March 15, 2018
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The History of Right-Hegelianism and How It Is Still With Us
Jeffrey Tucker at the Foundation for Economic Education traces the history of what today is called the "alt-right." In his article "The Pre-History of the Alt-Right," he points out that the movement's roots is "right-Hegelianism," which originated essentially as non-Marxist admiration of Bismarck's Prussia and the German Church. The "left-Hegelians were the Marxists. Hitler was a right-Hegelian.
Posted March 8, 2017
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The 1942 "Euthanasia" Debate in the American Journal of Psychiatry
As followup to my post "The Fascist Early Progressives," this article should be read by everyone.
Clinical psychologist, Jay Joseph, summarizes the journal debate. The content is shocking, but not surprising, given the progressives' premises. The psychiatrist in favor of euthanasia argues that society will be better off when the "feeble minded," whom he also referred to as "nature's mistakes," are euthanized. His opponent used an equally utilitarian and elitist argument to defend "low IQ" people because society still needs them to do our dirty work, i.e., for example, to collect garbage and shuck oysters. An unsigned editorial emphatically endorsed euthanasia and even questioned the mental health of parents who do not agree to the "releasing" of their deformed child's soul.
See these articles at the Foundation for Economic Education on the US history of eugenics: 1, 2, 3, 4. For more on the 1927 Buck v Bell Supreme Court case that legalized compulsory sterilization, see this.
Posted July 15, 2016
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Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams at Creators.com
Over the years I have read the work of professors Sowell and Williams. Now I am following their weekly columns at Creators.com. Please read them, here and here. Professor Williams, as he often does, gives us a history lesson in his latest column, this time about the Confederate flag. Over 3000 black soldiers during the War Between the States fought for the Confederacy and called it home. "When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier," Williams quotes African American Southern University professor, Dr. Leonard Hayes, "you've eliminated the history of the South."
Posted January 20, 2016
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Alan Dershowitz on the Descending Fog of Campus Fascism
The retired Harvard law professor and well-known non-conservative civil libertarian has spoken out strongly and clearly about recent campus unrest. "The last things these students want is diversity," "double-standard and hypocrisy," "free speech for me but not for thee," "the curtain of McCarthyism," and "blatant anti-semitism" are Dershowitz's words to describe what is going on today. Read 1, 2, and watch video.
Posted December 13, 2015
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The Closing of a Newsroom’s Mind
By Donald E. Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post, in the Wall Street Journal, which again, unfortunately, is behind a paywall. Graham defends the for-profit Kaplan University, merciless attacked, along with other similar ventures, by the NY Times. The online Times headline of the trashing included the word "fraud." The reporter, of course, relied on a leftist advocacy group to provide "research data," but never bothered to contact Kaplan or any other such university. The Times behavior is similar what it did to Amazon.com and what Rolling Stone did to the University of Virginia. Facts don't matter.
Posted November 1, 2015
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The Myth of Basic Science
By Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal, which, unfortunately means it is behind a paywall. Excerpts here. The upshot is that innovation does not come from tax-funded research. Rather, it is likely stymied by government involvement. Compare "The Philosophical Basis of Peer Review and the Suppression of Innovation."
Posted October 29, 2015
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The Erosion of Due Process on College Campuses
Samantha Harris (1, 2), director of policy research at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), analyzes the US Department of Education's "preponderance of evidence" standard, "single investigator" model, and other destructions of civil liberties in the academic setting.
Posted October 14, 2015
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The Costs of Publish or Perish
From Inside Higher Ed, Nobel prize winner in physics and new study question the value and validity of our current publishing mania. Compare 1, 2, 3, and 4. Innovation suffers.
Posted October 12, 2015
