Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Over at Reason, the Libertarian Party of California is quoted as saying:
There’s no reason why consenting adults should not be allowed to marry so long as their arrangement doesn’t interfere with any other individual’s ability to live their life in any way they want to.
Aye, there’s the rub. With the contemporary culture of the invasive nanny state, we do not let people suffer the consequences of their own mistakes.
According to a NY Times story:
According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented. The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.
I can only say one thing: ROFLe3!
An NSF-funded study, and a response.
In this earlier post, I should have linked to this piece by Fareed Zakaria, which is the first chapter of his new book
I like this Zakaria piece because he seems to be in broad agreement with me. Ha. We all like it when that happens. Also, his little capsule summary of the British Empire as our predecessor is nicely done. However, as I have complained to anyone who will listen, even Zakaria fails to understand how different the British Empire was from all its land-based predecessors. The one current writer to who “gets it” on this issue is Walter Russell Mead. Mead, in his excellent recent book God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World
…and is inspired to some thoughts about conservatism and John McCain.
I’m surprised that neither O’Rourke nor the highly literate editors of the Weekly Standard thought of including this 1851 quote from John Ruskin:
For one thing this century will in after ages be considered to have done in a superb manner and one thing I think only. . . it will always be said of us, with unabated reverence, “They built ships of the line” . . . the ship of the line is [man’s] first work. Into that he has put as much of his human patience, common sense, forethought, experimental philosophy, self control, habits of order and obedience, thoroughly wrought handwork, defiance of brute elements, careless courage, careful patriotism, and calm expectation of the judgement of God, as can well be put into a space of 300 feet long by 80 broad. And I am thankful to have lived in an age when I could see this thing so done.