Below is my column in The Hill on the controversial role played by the ABC moderators in the presidential debate. Three false claims in the debate continue to be repeated in what is now our post-truth political environment. (ABC later challenged another claim by Harris on the deployment of U.S. troops). Here is the column:
I sometimes make the theoretical case against socialism. Usually, this means exposing the flaws of the core components of the socialist ideology. Government ownership of the means of production is a recipe for resource misallocation. Central planning has a miserable track record of failure because consumer preferences are ignored. Price controls distort incentives to make […]
Last January, I received a letter threatening me with a defamation lawsuit if I continued my criticism of Hunter Biden, including allegations of criminal conduct. It all seemed part of a “Legion of Doom” defense hatched by Biden supporters reportedly to target critics and even potential witnesses. I proceeded to write three more columns repeating […]
In a sane world, medicines and vaccines already approved by trustworthy overseas regulators would automatically be able to be used in New Zealand as well.New Zealand is not sane. But neither is anywhere else really on that standard. Other places are just faster than NZ in getting things approved, with more practicable pathways for expedited…
For libertarians, this is a very depressing election (a feeling we tend to have every four years, so a familiar experience). What basically happens is that two politicians try to bribe us with our own money. This year, we have Kamala Harris, who was even worse than Bernie Sanders in the big-spender contest. And we […]
Uh-uh! Not So Fast, Citizens! The power to initiate systemic change remains where it has always been in New Zealand’s representative democracy – in Parliament. To order a binding referendum, the House of Representatives must first to be persuaded that, on the question proposed, sharing its decision-making power with the people is a good idea. Not…
We have previously discussed how Australia has eagerly joined the plunge into censorship and speech controls, including a court system that has repeatedly refused to protect free speech. It is now on the verge of enacting a new censorship bill that replicates the abuses under the European Union’s draconian Digital Service Act (DSA).
Greg Lukianoff is, as most of you know, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He’s also a lawyer and co-author, with Jon Haidt, of the excellent book The Coddling of the American Mind. Yesterday in Quillette, Lukianoff wrote a piece that many of us may find useful, outlining how to give comebacks […]
Ele Ludemann writes – Former Olympians and sports representatives are calling for safety and fairness to take precedence over trans ideology: An open letter signed by nearly 60 former New Zealand Olympians and sports representatives asks the government to ensure fairness is the cornerstone of sport at all levels.
In the 1970s the general aviation aircraft industry was selling 15,000 or more aircraft a year but that number fell by a factor of about 10 in the early 1980s. What happened? One factor was a massive increase in tort liability as discussed in my paper with Eric Helland, Product Liability and Moral Hazard: Evidence […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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