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Advice and Consent
“To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State…
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Reasons for the Season
Hanukology: It was basically an argument between two points of view that mixed abstractions and interests (as always), but (also as always) with variations and fluctuations, mind-changes and occasional betrayals. To simplify somewhat, one side, those who later (in Hasmonean times, see below) became known as Saducees, were religious conservatives but pro-Hellenist cultural liberals; the…
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2016 Best List
Let those with enough time to consume all the media in a field decide on the objective bests-of-2016. What follows is a completely subjective list of bests, idiosyncratically limited by what I’ve actually had time to watch, read, or listen to: Best New Book in Philosophy: We don’t think hard enough about the metaphysics that…
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“That man who has nothing to lose:” Black Americans and Superfluousness
Long before white Americans felt like their society had abandoned them, Black Americans knew the feeling. Just like whites do today, some Black Americans responded to earlier superfluousness by “clinging to guns and religion” to use Barack Obama’s famous analysis. (cf. Kinsley gaffe) Here’s James Baldwin, describing the Nation of Islam: “I’ve come,” said Elijah,…
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Any Cook Can Govern: Populism and Progressivism
I have lots of feels and lots of arguments about these two pieces by Peter Levine on an alt-left populism: “pluralist populism” and “separating populism from anti-intellectualism.” (This post on identity politics is also relevant.) Peter even goes so far as to call himself a populist, which is a surprising move to restore the term’s…