From Stanley Kurtz’s Radical-in-Chief, ppgs 59-60: Every aspect of Obama’s treatment of his career choice in Dreams from My Father was an active theme at the 1983 Cooper Union Socialist Scholars Conference. Want to fight the “dirty deeds” of Reagan and his minions? Become a community organizer. Do it well — and do it in a minority community — and you just might become the next Harold Washington, leading a
Provocateurism
Posts in the provocateurism series.
May 5, 2010
Provocateurism 14: Originalism vs Textualism, continued
Patrick Frey’s latest attempt to address intentionalism as it functions in the realm of legal interpretation again falls short — first, because it miscasts my positions, and second, because it draws its conclusions from the very faulty premises it posits. Writes Frey: Goldstein argues that there is a distinction between what a law “means” and what a judge does with that knowledge. However, for Goldstein, judges should always enforce laws
May 2, 2010
Provocateurism 13: Originalism vs. Textualism, cont.
In response to my recent post on legal interpretation and intentionalism, Patterico raises a series of questions that speak to what I think are a number of common misunderstandings about language as it exists on the structural level. He writes: As I understand Goldstein’s latest post, he argues that textualist judges are, in most cases, reaching the same result as intentionalists would. The reason, he explains, is that lawmakers tend
April 30, 2010
Provocateurism 12
From Liberty and Tyranny, Mark Levin on legal interpration: […] When parties enter into voluntary arrangements, such as contracts, they use words to describe the terms and conditions by which they are obligated to perform and on which they are expected to rely. Contracts are interpreted, and the intentions of the parties discerned, in the context of their original making The conservative is an originalist, for he believes that much
April 11, 2010
Provocateurism, 11
As a follow up to our discussion over what should be the conservative / classical liberal strategy with regard to illegal immigration (in particular, how best to influence the national debate and so give whatever political party we back the rhetorical cover to address the issue), allow me to offer additional material to fuel what I hope will be an ongoing discussion. Again, from Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: The
April 8, 2010
Provocateurism, 10
So I was reading this morning about how “Violence on the border endangers Americans,” and it got me to thinking about what Nishi and happy have been obliquely arguing of late — namely, that should conservatives / classical liberals become vocal over forthcoming high-profile immigration “reform” proposals, their subsequent depiction by both the media and lawmakers (of both parties, potentially) as ravaging nativists and xenophobes will go a long way
March 29, 2010
Provocateurism, 9
In an earlier thread — under a post made famous by its violence toward women and its Steve McQueen fantasies — Nishi asks rhetorically, “where are the conservative professors, filmmakers, comics, scientists, actors, artists?” Her point being that a (perceived or actual) dearth of prominent conservatives in those fields equates to a population among conservatives of those who can cultivate neither the requisite intellect or social sensibilities to join those
August 14, 2008
Provocateurism, 8
I’ve spent a lot of energy on this site detailing how underlying ideological assumptions — which I believe are necessarily driven by certain linguistic ideas (some of which have become so entrenched in our institutional rhetoric that they are difficult to discern, and even more difficult to weed out) — manifest themselves, in most cases, in predictable political affiliations. On a more concrete level, this idea is fleshed out by
August 12, 2008
Provocateurism, 7
In a way it was predictable — and I won’t deny that, on some level, I probably knew the issue would be broached — but yesterday’s post in the provocateurism series wended its way, in exchanges between author and commenters / commenters and commenters, to the subject of race-based affirmative action, a dubious practice of late saved, against (in my opinion) the clear intention of certain Constitutional prohibitions, by the
August 11, 2008
Provocateurism, 6
Longtime readers of this site have frequently encountered arguments in which I fasten identity politics to a form of soft, progressivist totalitarianism “PC” speech (which, we are often told with a wave of the hand and a gourmands’ sniff, is, like, so ’90s — and thus, supposedly antiquated as a legitimate point of ideological friction, current fashion circumscribing the only authentic topics for political complaint, with that fashion decided upon,