Pun Salad

I’ve been a Republican since I was 18-years-old. I hardly recognize the party today—at least, the party in Washington, D.C. But even in the distressed state it’s in, I would rather fix the Republican party than leave it.

The Republican party I joined on the eve of the Reagan era brought different people and ideas together. That was the secret of its widespread support. But although it was diverse, it was not unprincipled. When Republicans remember the good old days, we remember the values we share.

Given your 2016 pledge that you are a “libertarian for life,” why are you choosing to run in 2020 as a Republican?  

Weld: I've self-identified as a small “l” libertarian since I was in law school and discovered Friedrich Hayek. After I decided to challenge President Trump directly, run as an “R,” rather than a capital “L,” most of my friends in the Libertarian Party said we're with you all the way, we know your principles and we know they haven't changed.

‘Living in a democracy is no longer protection from authoritarianism,” Joshua Keating argues in Slate. One quibble: Living in a democracy never offered protection from authoritarianism — democracy has as often been the handmaiden of authoritarianism.

For more than a century, we have used “democracy” as a shorthand for good and decent government, and also to indicate a distinctly progressive American view of good government. The founding father of American progressivism, Woodrow Wilson, demanded a war, because, as he said, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” When the American Left speaks about its desire to exercise power over businesses or private life, it says that it wishes to “democratize” this or that enterprise. Bernie Sanders calls his proposal to plunder his political enemies his plan for “Corporate Accountability and Democracy.” The more clever kind of Marxist speaks about “economic democracy.” Yet in spite of all this, the word “democracy” retains its positive connotations.

If Ex-Im increases American exports and if that is good, why not boost the agency’s subsidies enough for exports to increase until the whole American GDP is exported? (Whatever Americans needed for subsistence or more would be imported.) If the answer to this question is that subsidizing exports is only good up to a certain point, the question becomes: How are politicians and government bureaucrats as central planners capable of determining that nirvana threshold, as opposed to just laissez-faire the interplay of the decentralized actions of producers and consumers? Can Nancy Pelosi or Mike McConnell find the nirvana threshold?

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is misusing a regularly scheduled political rally to frighten his base and gin up support for his troubled administration. Flinging scare-mongering language, the Democratic governor has portrayed a grassroots lobbying effort against gun restrictions as a potential source of "violent extremism" and declared a state of emergency.

It's a cheap attempt to build support by delegitimizing opposition to his policies. On the way to declaring a state of emergency, Northam breathlessly warned:

Credible intelligence gathered by Virginia's law enforcement agencies indicates that tens of thousands of advocates plan to converge on Capitol Square for events culminating on January 20, 2020. Available information suggests that a substantial number of these demonstrators are expected to come from outside the Commonwealth, may be armed, and have as their purpose not peaceful assembly but violence, rioting, and insurrection.

Signs are made out in the open. Why can’t you read them?

How is it “stealing”?

It’s looking and seeing.

I put "stealing" in quotes because stealing usually sounds bad, but in baseball stealing bases is a celebrated skill. The easiest solution to this "existential crisis" is just to accept sign stealing as part of the game, no more unethical than stealing a base. Since that route is possible, isn't the real dispute about the balance of advantages between pitcher and batter? Is the hand-wringing about ethics pro-pitcher propaganda?