David Rodeback's Blog

Saturday, April 8, 2006

The Week's Readings

Thomas Sowell, George Will, and Paul Greenberg lead the list, but the biggest category is immigration again, including some very interesting data.

Favorites

Sounding a theme that is common here and in his own writings, Thomas Sowell wonders if facts are obsolete.

Paul Greenberg on the late Caspar Weinberger and good deeds that don't go unpunished. Some of this might make you think that an indifference to evidence and fact isn't an entirely new feature in our politics.

George Will takes up the topic of global warming. (Is it better or worse than global cooling, which was the supposed dire threat when I was a kid?)

Immigration

In case you didn't get enough of immigration in last week's reading list, here's a good piece by Jack Kelly.

Jack Kemp says we can be both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. I'm for that.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., reports on the treatment legal and illegal immigrants in Mexico receive in Mexican law.

Niall Ferguson is interesting on the possible demise of globalization, the immigration debate, and the looming economic consequences if we play it stupidly.

Dick Morris has an angle on immigration that I haven't heard anyone else mentioning, and it has to do with who will be the next president of Mexico.

Linda Chavez adds some information to the immigration debate. Larry Kudlow adds even more.

Kathleen Parker wonders if the Latino protestors who claim the American Southwest is theirs, not ours, would really want it without the American economy and government (including the welfare programs of the latter).

Alan Reynolds adds still more data to the hopper, discussing our current immigration laws and foreseeable consequences of some of the proposals.

Tony Snow says immigration will prove to have been overrated as an issue by Election Day.

Tim Chapman will guide you through Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's old views and new views on immigration. It's a Democrat's prerogative to change his mind, I suppose.

Charles Krauthammer makes the best argument I've heard for building a wall.

Ed Gillespie says the Republican Party must not become an anti-immigration party.

The Media  (New and Old)

Paul Jacob notes that the Federal Election Commission has announced that it does not intend to regulate blogs and other speech on the Internet. He's not satisfied, partly because the right to blog goes directly to First Amendment, not the FEC or any other agency, and partly because the First Amendment has already taken so many hits of late.

Burt Prelutsky muses on the double standard evident in media treatment of Presidents Bush and Clinton. None of it is news, but occasional reminders don't hurt.

Michael Barone points to bias in the news media.

Jeff Jacoby writes about the race to report and the race to analyze. He says, "First impressions are not the same as thoughtful commentary. It's nice to be first. It's better to be right."

Miscellany

Before you, too, panic over global warming, realize that the doomsayers are politicians and politicized scientists, using political tactics in an attempt to prevail. Robert Novak comments. And save some worried energy for next decade's panic over global cooling ("the next Ice Age").

Celia R. Baker writes in The Salt Lake Tribune of per student and per capita spending on education in Utah.

Who are the revolutionaries? Hint: They're not on the left, according to Jonah Goldberg.

Leon Wieselteir's thoughtful essay in The New Republic includes observations like this:

I understand that war demands debate, and that it is a citizenly duty to throw oneself into the discussion; but I am a little inclined to shut up. All the polysyllabic slogans and the pet ideas seem spectacularly beside the point. I find no reason to conclude that the war is a success and I find no reason to conclude that the war is a failure. I find reason only to wait and see.

And this:

So if we intended to free Iraq, we have succeeded. But if we intended to democratize Iraq, we have not yet succeeded. Democracy is not the same thing as freedom. Democracy is a specific arrangement of freedom. And insofar as it is an attempt to exchange one political culture with another, democratization is essentially a policy of destabilization; and therefore it takes time. For this reason, and not only for this reason, the president is right that the United States must remain in Iraq for the duration of the struggle. And he is right that there are many brave people in Iraq who are working to create a fair and open order, and that these people have a deep moral claim upon our help. And he is right that it is not the presence of the United States that is the main cause of the Iraqi semi-chaos: the separatists and the saints are acting, quite obviously, on their own identities. And he is right that a democratic Iraq would be an epochal accomplishment.

David Gelernter prescribes a revival of federalism, and it has a lot to do with Roe v. Wade.

Daniel Henninger argues that 20th century rules of war, such as they are, put our soldiers unnecessarily at risk in the 21st century.

Shawn Macomber discusses Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's new health care plan (which requires everyone to be insured, rather like states require drivers to have liability insurance), and Reihan Salam discusses the plans implications for Romney's presidential aspirations.

Andrew J. Rotherham wonders why teachers unions won't help students.

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