So I'm posting a long video I haven't (yet) watched:
But if you'd like a text preview, the WSJ has you covered for one of Justice Thomas's main points: Progressives vs. the Declaration. (WSJ gifted link) Excerpt of that excerpt:
Human history teaches us, alas, that numerical majorities frequently seek to control government, and use the state to violate the rights of the minority. Because man is fallen and the desire for power was, as James Madison described it, “sown in the nature of man,” government had to be limited. For, as Madison said, “if men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” But men are not angels. The slaveholders used the power of government to deny the fundamental natural rights of the slaves; the segregationists used the state to oppress the freed men and women—including my ancestors.
As we meet today, it is unclear whether these principles will endure. At the beginning of the 20th century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream. The proponents of this new set of first principles, most prominently among them the 28th president, Woodrow Wilson, called it progressivism. Since Wilson’s presidency, progressivism has made many inroads in our system of government and our way of life. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.
Seems pretty clear. But I couldn't help but notice the headline at the Daily Beast: SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, 77, Goes on Unhinged Rant About ‘Intellectuals’.
Unhinged rant, huh? I have my doubts. The relevant C-SPAN page has a search function for their closed-caption transcript of the speech and the word "intellectuals" doesn't show up there. Let me know if you can find anything that would remotely support the Daily Beast allegation. From what I've seen and read so far, Thomas's talk seems completely hinged. [UPDATE 2026-04-18: I watched Justice Thomas's speech and I did notice one (and only one) occurence of the "I" word:
Intellectuals want you to believe that our founding principles are matters of esoteric philosophy or sophisticated debate.
I may have missed something, but I don't think so. This doesn't sound unhinged to me. I don't think the context supports that, either.
To be fair to "intellectuals": characterizing just about everything as "matters of esoteric philosophy or sophisticated debate" is what they do. Otherwise they would have to investigate other fields, like HVAC installation or insurance underwriting.
Seriously: Thomas's speech was a standard defense of the natural rights asserted in the Declaration of Independence against "Progressives" like Woodrow Wilson (and a host of modern racists and eugenicists). He brings out the big guns: Jefferson (of course), Lincoln, Coolidge, Locke, de Tocqueville, etc. You can disagree, fine, but labelling it as an "unhinged rant" is delusional.]
But coincidentally I read Bryan Garner's article in the May issue of National Review, and I'll spend one of my free links for this month to share it with you: Defending Against the Demagogue. What stood out was his leadoff sentence:
Although words are our main tools for thinking about the world, in public life they’re used most relentlessly to keep us from thinking at all.
Congratulations to the Daily Beast for providing such a perfect illustration of that!
Also of note:
-
I know Tax Day is in the rear view mirror for a while, but… Vero de Rugy is Debunking Five Tax Day Myths, and attention should be paid. To #3, specifically: "If You Can't Tax the Rich, Tax Corporations":
Corporations are the next most likely target for those who want large government without the middle class paying for it. The problem is that corporations don't actually pay taxes. Once you understand why, this starts to look like one of the worst ideas in America's tax code.
Corporations write checks to the IRS, but they don't bear the tax burden. Every dollar collected for corporate tax comes from a human: the worker who's paid a lower wage, the shareholder who earns less, and the consumer who pays higher prices at checkout. Research shows that workers bear somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of the corporate tax burden through lower wages. If you have a 401(k), you're paying it too, quietly, through lower returns on every stock in the fund.
Further, corporate profits are returns on investment. Tax them and you get less investment. Less investment means lower productivity, which leads to lower wages over time. Decades ago, economists Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka showed a better way: Replace the corporate income tax with a consumption-based system under which businesses deduct all wages and capital investment immediately. No double taxation, no penalty on investment, and revenue without unintended economic damage.
The corporate tax survives because voters mistakenly believe someone else pays it. This belief is expensive.
I recently visited the website of NH gubernatorial candidate Jon Kiper. He knows general income and sales taxes are off the table in this state, but I noted his desire to resurrect the Interest&Dividends tax. I didn't mention his other "Taxes" pledges to "Reset [i.e.: raise] the Business Profits Tax to 2015 rates" and "Establish a minimum corporate tax".
He needs to read Vero's column.
-
Food for thought, via David R. Henderson, from American Thinker Peter C. Earle: The Anarchy Pose.
What makes the extremes of the libertarian impulse so attractive to some individuals is precisely what makes it dangerous to shallow ones. At the latter edge of the spectrum, it offers the emotional satisfactions of radicalism without demanding the intellectual burdens of institutional thought. To say “down with the state” (or “end the Fed”) is, in many circles, less the culmination of rigorous reasoning than a substitute for it. It can function as an elegant refusal to descend into the messy terrain where actual societies live: enforcement, coordination, collective risk, externalities, public goods, and the always uncomfortable problem of what happens when private incentives do not align with social stability.
The cynical truth is that “anarchism” often flatters the ego. Whether of the Left or Right variety, it permits one to occupy the moral high ground against every visible failure of government while avoiding responsibility for specifying durable alternatives against the likely tradeoffs. It is much easier to sneer at the DMV, zoning boards, central banks, tax authorities, or city councils than to explain operationally how millions of strangers are to resolve disputes, define property rights, manage contagion, deter predation, or provide credible rules of the game across time. Sloganeering is edgy; weighing institutions against competing and conflicting aims is hard.
I take his point, and if you note me self-flattering my ego, please talk me down.
But: I'm not an anarchist, at least not this week. And the late, great, Brian Doherty put forth an eminently reasonable case for ending the Fed in the eminently reasonable Reason last year.
| Recently on the book blog: |
|
![[The Blogger]](/ps/images/barred.jpg)
