Last summer, you might remember the street protests, the op-eds, the academic denunciations, the UN statements all rebuking Israel’s retaliation against Hamas-controlled Gaza. Rewind a couple of years to an earlier Israel-Hamas war, and the international reaction was similarly vociferous. Going back many years, the pattern holds firm. But if you go back far enough, the picture is radically different.
Over at The Huffington Post, ARI’s Distinguished Fellow and author of the upcoming In Defense of Selfishness: Why the Code of Self-Sacrifice Is Unjust and Destructive, Peter Schwartz argues that conservatives who oppose doctor-assisted suicide are, in fact, contradicting the actual right to life.
“In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example . . . of charters of power granted by liberty.”
James Madison wrote these words in 1792, five years after the Constitution began its journey toward ratification by the states. Today marks the 227th anniversary of that beginning — the signing of the Constitution by the 39 delegates to the Philadelphia convention. Madison’s statement is one of my favorites because it conveys, more than any other quote I can think of, the proper relationship between individuals and government, which is a key part of the profound moral significance of the Constitution and the government it created.
In a recent video for PJTV, Bill Whittle and Andrew Klavan answer a question from a viewer: “Why is Ayn Rand nonsense?” To their credit, they largely reject the premise of the question, and while they are very critical of Rand (and annoyingly snarky about it), their criticisms are on the whole thoughtful if tremendously confused.
The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview ARI senior fellow and chief content officer Onkar Ghate on how the concept of individual rights can and should guide our thinking about political issues, including the welfare state.
In Free Market Fairness, Brown University political science professor John Tomasi seeks to defend free markets on a Rawlsian “social justice” foundation. In laying the groundwork for his argument, Tomasi thinks it is notable that even most free-market thinkers appeal to “social justice” concerns, i.e., that they almost all — from Adam Smith to Herbert Spencer to Milton Friedman — stress that free markets are good for “the poor.”
Michael Kinsley has a very sensible take on the Supreme Court’s McCutcheon decision that is particularly notable because he refuses to join the chorus of unfocused, hysterical complaints about money in politics emanating from many of his colleagues on the left.
In recent years, the Supreme Court has issued a spate of generally good campaign finance decisions that move steadily closer to treating free speech the way it should be treated — as an individual right. Last week’s decision in McCutcheon v. FEC, which struck down so-called “aggregate” contribution limits, is the latest example.
