Oct
8
2014

URLs du Jour — 2014-10-08

  • Traditional marriage (or, as I like to think of it, "marriage") is apparently headed toward the ash heap of history. At the Federalist, David Harsanyi makes a small plea for language honesty:

    […], I’m asking on what logical grounds can a person argue that gay marriage is okay but polygamy is not—or any other type of marriage? If your answer is an arbitrary declaration like “the ideal union is between only two individuals” then all you’ve done is redefine the parameters of marriage. You support gay marriage, not “marriage equality.”

  • Nick Gillespie is at his snarky best writing about Harvard students asking—nay, demanding—that the college sever ties to the "Teach For America" program (which puts college grads directly into schools that lack quality teachers and/or resources) unless TFA only places participants in unionized government schools.

    The Harvard prodigies and the organizers at USAS ["United Students Against Sweatshops"] are about the last people standing who think that unionizing teachers is the last, best hope of improving American education, especially for students from lower-income, higher-risk-for-failure backgrounds. Good luck to them as their reactionary attitudes leave them further and further in the rear-view window as the rest of the country moves into a future of increased options for all, regardless of family income and ability to pay.

    I can only imagine the thought processes of the typical Harvard student who tries to reconcile these demands with their default moral preening about their compassion.

  • From Charles C. W. Cooke, more analysis of Scripps College's disinvitation to George F. Will.

    For all the elaborate apologias and tortuous self-justifications, the enemies of open expression are in practice singing the same song now as they ever were: “Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, we don’t want you here!” That, of course, is their right, but it is not a right that can be exercised without cost. To deprive a speaker of his chance to speak is, by definition, to deprive his listeners of a chance to listen — no small crime in a school purporting to teach “liberal arts.” Today, we roll our eyes at the peculiar uniformity of the American college campus. Tomorrow, though, we should laugh, for the losers here are not George Will and the nation’s many conservatives, but instead the students of Scripps, who, thanks to the prim and delicate scolds who run their grubby, insipid little establishment, will remain cosseted in their bubble for yet another day.

    Mamas, don't let your daughters grow up to go to Scripps.

  • Some default-view readers may be interested in my take on Bourgeois Dignity by Deirdre N. McCloskey, over on the Pun Salad books area.

  • Your Tweet du Jour:

    Background if necessary here and here and (even) here.


Last Modified 2019-01-09 7:04 AM EDT