Malcolm Gladwell Retracts [Jonah Goldberg]
He made a nasty error in a New Yorker piece. Here's his correction. Another will be in the magazine. I often enjoy reading Gladwell, though I've got some criticisms of his work, but the error (he basically said Charles Murray wants to round up dumb people. He doesn't) is totally in line with the way liberals and the left treated Murray. I discuss this quite a bit in my book.
It should tell you something that the most famously fact-checked magazine in the English language saw Gladwell's charge against Murray and never thought to double check it. It just made so much sense.
The basic problem liberals have a hard time grasping: Murray is a soaked-to-the-bone libertarian. He doesn't think the government is qualified or entitled to do much of anything. But whenever liberals hear conservatives or libertarians talk about race they automatically leap to images of Nazism or Fascism when virtually all serious or mainstream rightwing thinkers endorse, at most, benign neglect AKA colorblindness. You can take exception to such arguments, even passionate exception, but it is outrageous to suggest that Murray or Bill Bennett (remember his Freakonomics hypothetical?) or pretty much any other conservative or libertarian worthy of the label wants to use state power to oppress or eliminate minorities. It is a slanderous projection of liberal biases onto conservatives and it has been with us since the days when Herbert Spencer was demonized for being a radical liberal.
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Senate Responds to Energy Concerns by Raising Prices [Iain Murray]
The anti-energy bill passed the Senate 86-8 last night following removal of the two titles David describes so well below. The eight good people to vote against were Sens Barrasso (R-WY), Coburn (R-OK), DeMint (R-SC), Enzi (R-WY), Hatch (R-UT), Inhofe (R-OK), Kyl (R-AZ), and Stabenow (D-MI). The President has said he will sign this terrible deal.
The bill will restrict Americans' choices when it comes to the sort of cars they can buy as well as making them more expensive (although there's a good chance technological advances that would have happened anyway might save Americans from this) and raise fuel, food, and drink prices as a result of an extension of the reprehensible ethanol scam.
Recent polls have shown that Americans are concerned about rising energy prices. It seems odd, then, that Congress's response serves only to add to this concern.
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