Leftism

The Selfish Left

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In the NYTimes,  Nicholas Kristof asks why leftists give less to charity  [h/t Instapundit] than do those on the Right. Why do the people who collectively advocate redistributing wealth from producers to the poor donate so little as individuals to the same cause?

I think the reason simple: Leftism isn’t about  compassion. Leftism is about control. Leftism is about freeing the individual from personal responsibility for anything, including charity.

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Two Worthwhile Interviews

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Peter Robinson interviews Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele. Sowell talks about his book, A Conflict of Visions, current affairs and the presidential election in a discussion that took place before the election. Steele talks about Barack Obama, US racial politics and the presidential election in the context of his book, A Bound Man. The video version of each interview is roughly one-half hour long and is accompanied by a written transcript. Click the “Read the rest…” link below to watch the videos or read the transcripts.

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Politics and Education

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According to this, voters with postgraduate educations supported Obama by 58% versus 40% for McCain.

This article suggests that the election results can be characterized as “the triumph of the creative class,” with “creative class” drawn from “Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the younger, go-go set in the financial world.”

For discussion: what, if anything, should Republicans/conservatives/libertarians do to increase their appeal to these categories of voters?

Let me get things off to a contentious start by suggesting that the “creative class” tag is more than a little presumptuous. Is a stock trader really more creative than a production control specialist in a factory, or a platoon commander in the Marines? (Indeed, I’ve seen research suggesting that the cognitive skills of a good trader and a good combat commander have a lot of similarities.) Is a computer programmer automatically more creative than a mechanical engineer? Is it really true that spreadsheet mavens on Wall Street are more creative than small businesspeople? Is a professor of electrical engineering inherently more creative than a practitioner of the same field who works for a defense contractor?

Maybe “credentialed class” would be a more realistic descriptor than “creative class.”

What say you?