The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Oikophobia’ and #NeverTrump: How Can We ‘Secure the Blessings of Liberty’?

  What has prompted our immigration crisis? Isn’t it the same sentiment that leads Democrats (and David French, but I repeat myself) to claim Ilhan Omar is a better American than anyone born here? “Oikophobia,” a hatred of one’s native country (and of one’s fellow citizens) is the most remarkable proof that our elite class […]

Reading Samizdat

This morning, I answered an email from a reader disappointed that I had linked the pickup artist (PUA) site Chateau Heartiste in my post about feminist Sophie Vershbow. The content of the post at Chateau Heartiste is anti-Semitic, and the comments on the post are even worse, and I replied to the reader’s email explaining […]

Rich Liberals (and Why We Hate Them)

  You probably never heard of Anand Giridharadas — I hadn’t, until yesterday — but let’s begin our introduction with this: He attended Sidwell Friends School, the same ultra-elite private school in D.C. to which Bill and Hillary Clinton sent their daughter Chelsea. His father Mohan Giridharadas spent 18 years at the global management consulting […]

Would You Hire @ChloeAngyal? (With Extra Special Bonus Schadenfreude)

  Following up on Friday’s post (“‘Learn to Code’ and the Collapse of the Millennial SJW Clickbait Bubble”), we come to the case of now-unemployed Huffington Post deputy opinion editor Chloe Angyal. Professor Reynolds reminds us of the fact that after Dr. Angyal undertook this job, she focused on increasing “diversity” in HuffPo’s opinion columns […]

‘Their Precious Narrative’

  Years ago, Conor (With One “N”) Friedersdorf became a favorite punching bag around here because of his habit of making “conservative” arguments for the liberal agenda, not to mention his absolute lack of cynicism or humor. Friedersdorf craved recognition as a Serious Thinker in a way that struck me as eminently laughable — Mister […]

A World Without Norms: The Influence of Judith Butler’s ‘Gender Trouble’

Feminists protest in Los Angeles, January 2017. “When did feminism go completely bonkers?” That question is sometimes raised when I relate the latest outburst of madness from academia (e.g., “How has the form of your child been culturally interpreted?”) or from popular culture (e.g., Gillette’s advertising attack on “toxic masculinity”). Indeed, this spiraling descent into […]

Google: ‘To Control the Narrative, We Planted Stories with Journalists’

  One of the things I noticed during the August 2017 controversy about Google’s firing of James Damore was that the media were promoting “fake news” about the Harvard-educated scientist: Repeatedly, headlines mischaracterize Damore’s views as “anti-diversity” (despite his clearly stated support for diversity) and news articles falsely assert that Damore argued women were “genetically unsuited” (Washington […]

The Happiness Gap

  The secret to happiness is low expectations. In an affluent modern society, most of our emotional problems can be described as disappointment, originating in the failure of life to match our fondest hopes and ambitions. It’s not that the life we actually have is necessarily bad, but that we can imagine so many ways […]

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