July 9, 2021 — Scott Johnson
New frontiers in "equity"
Is it possible to satirize the calculated malice and unthinking stupidity underlying the movement supporting the replacement of "equality" (meaning equal rights) with "equity" (meaning equal results)? I don't think so. Maybe, but I seriously doubt it. Today the Star Tribune reports on new frontiers in "equity." Now we have "tree equity." Taking up the local angle on tree equity, the Star Tribune looks at how St. Paul measures up »
June 13, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Relevant classic texts (3)
I just finished reading Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America for the first time. I read it over the past two years or so in weekly lunch meetings with my friend Bruce Sanborn. Carleton College's Professor Larry Cooper, also a friend, served as our preceptor. We used the terrific edition translated, edited, and introduced by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop that is published by the University of Chicago Press. Like »
Whiny narcissist meets empty suit
Today, Joe Biden allowed Megan Rapinoe, a female soccer player, to use the White House for two of her favorite purposes: (1) whining about not being paid enough and (2) calling attention to herself. Rapinoe, a radical feminist, is leading the crusade for "equal pay" for women soccer players. At the White House, she made it personal, declaring that, by being paid less than players on the men's national soccer »
November 2, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Is Kamala Harris a Marxist or just incoherent?
I don't know. The main thing I know about Harris is that she's an opportunist. If you don't think so, check with some of the people she prosecuted in California. The following statements by Harris have been cited as evidence that she's a Marxist: Equality suggests, oh, everyone should get the same amount. The problem with that, not everybody's starting out from the same place. So if we're all getting »
Race and equality
Earlier today, we had as one of our "picks" at the top of the homepage an article called "Race and Equality." This is an interview with Glenn Loury conducted by one of his former students, Glenn Yu. We have new picks up now, but I wanted to capture this interview (or conversation) permanently on Power Line. Loury is an economist who teaches at Brown. He made news recently by objecting »
March 1, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Thoughts on Our Present Discontents: Return of the Turtles?
In surveying the current political scene, let us take in the observations of a prominent political scientist: The United States is witnessing a transformation of political styles. Traditional party politicians are being challenged not only on the substance of public policy but on their conduct of political activity. It is their behavior as political men as well as their position on issues that is under attack. Whatever their disagreements on »
September 19, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Mugged by unreality
Steve has written about an important essay in the Atlantic by George Packer called "When the Culture War Comes for the Kids." Packer is a liberal who first came to my attention as a fierce critic of President George W. Bush. His latest essay is, in part, an expression of dismay at the identity politics/standards-shredding orthodoxy that has overtaken New York's public schools under Bill de Blasio. Some conservatives are »
September 17, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Does the Left Suffer from ODS (Obama Disappointment Syndrome)?
Last week I gave a talk at the California Club in Los Angeles that I'll post as a podcast this week if the recording turned out decently (I haven't had a chance to listen yet), but I opened with the old line attributed to Edna St. Vincent-Millay that "history isn't one damn thing after another—it's the same damn thing over and over again." It is not a new theme here »
March 17, 2019 — Steven Hayward
The Power Line Show, Ep. 115: The Endless Quest for Social Equality
Just in time for your Sunday afternoon walk in the woods or your Monday morning commute, the latest podcast! By popular demand (with some listeners anyway), this episode features another lecture from my periodic series for the William F. Buckley Program at Yale, this time on the topic of "The Endless Quest for Social Equality." This talk ranges widely from the contentions over income inequality that Thomas Piketty's book ignited »
U.S. Women's soccer team sues for equal pay
The 1996 Olympic Games were held in Atlanta, but some of the soccer matches took place at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. I took our family to see a doubleheader — a women's match between Brazil and Norway and a men's match between Ghana and South Korea. The two women's teams were among the five best in the world at that time. The two men's teams probably would have been »
February 26, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Tax the Rich, Feed the Poor. . .
There are days when I note that I was way ahead of the Progressive curve. For example, six years ago I mused here twice about why liberals should advocate for a wealth tax ( here and here), noting in the first post: An excise tax of 1 percent on Buffett's assets would yield something like $350 million a year. Throw in Gates, the founders of Google, Apple, and Facebook, and the »
Abolish Billionaires?
Well now this is curious, and an inconvenient fact for the "abolish billionaires" movement that thrives currently in the Democratic Party. (Keep in mind that besides Robert Reich saying all billionaires cheated, AOC's chief of staff Tweets under the handle "Every billionaire is a policy failure.") It turns out that of the top 20 nations on the UN's Human Development Index, nine have more billionaires per capita than the United »
January 22, 2019 — Steven Hayward
This Week @ Yale: Equality Uber Alles!
For those of you in the New Haven area, I'll be returning to Yale on Thursday afternoon (if the airlines and weather cooperate!) for the next in my series of lectures for the William F. Buckley Program at Yale, this time on the subject "The Endless Quest for Social Equality." The actual lecture has taken a different—and I guarantee more provocative!—direction since the description written for the early announcement below, »
November 24, 2018 — Steven Hayward
This Week @ Yale
With all of the holiday commotion I have neglected to put up notice here of my final visit to Yale for this semester, this Tuesday at 4:30, in the same location as before (WLH 207, 100 Wall Street). Sponsored by the William F. Buckley Program, I'll be giving a lecture on the topic of equality. I'm going to begin with the droll opening line from Peter deVries's novel The Prick »
Mis-Measuring Racism: A How-To Guide
Years ago a friend who signed on with a large prestigious law firm recounted how one of his first orientation sessions was "sensitivity training" (the precursor to "diversity" workshops today) with regard to ethnicity and sexual orientation. Back in those innocent days it consisted largely in an inventory of terms and phrases that you might not be aware are pejorative or insulting to minorities. To which my pal said, "I learned »
Liberalism Is Just Resentment and Envy Sanctified
This week's New York Times Sunday Magazine offers up a long, sumptuous feature about high-end private jets. It's great fun if you like to ogle the perks of the top 0.0001 percent. You almost expect to hear the theme song of that gaudy old TV show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous playing the background while you read along. It really is airplane porn. The story focuses on the premier »
Coates Versus Douglass
Ta-Nehesi Coates has a new essay out about Trump that is generating a lot of buzz, entitled "The First White President." Here are a couple of excerpts about what he has to say about Trump: He is preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He is ready and willing at any time during the first year of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice »