This is the last post I'll put on the Georgetown Federalist blog. From here on, I'll let the youngsters take over blogging duties. I'm sure they'll do as good a job with the blog as they've done with the rest of the paper. I can't promise I won't leave crazy anonymous comments from time to time, but I'll try to keep them to a minimum. If anyone has grown accustomed to my diatribes and wants to read more of them, I'll be posting exclusively on the New Madisonian from now on.

As we all know by now, the Iranian government is in the process of violently suppressing protests against the government in the aftermath of the tainted election. Editorial ink has already been spent with profligate abandon in debating whether Obama should use harsher words in denouncing the violence, so I won't add to that discussion. On a more useful level, we should take a dispassionate view of what the U.S. policy options are in a situation like this. Those options depend in turn on what leverage we have in changing Iran's policy and what cost we are willing to pay to do so.

Over the last couple weeks, the New York Times has, with seemingly increasing frequency, put out opinion pieces that fail to live up to the most basic standards of argumentation. By that accusation, I don't mean that I disagree with their partisan talking points or that there are subtle flaws in their writers' logic. Rather, the articles lack basic cohesion and organization, making them nearly unreadable.

I got a thoughtful comment on the New Madisonian about the animal rights post from a few days ago and, after writing a long response in the comments section that was erased and totally lost, I decided I'll try to put my response in a post instead to make sure I don't lose it again. Here's the original comment:
 
 

There have been some absurd expressions of outrage in the history of politics, but I don't think there's ever been one as ridiculous as PETA's most recent protestations about President Obama's "executive insect execution." During a taped interview, President Obama killed a fly that was buzzing around annoying him, prompting some innocuous chuckles and, of course, obsequious compliments from lefty bloggers and media figures (“It’s like he’s got one of those fly Terminator targeting systems in his eyes,” Jon Stewart opined.) PE

"Don't judge." We've all heard that admonishment at one point or another. Sometimes it's followed by "me", sometimes "him" or "her". The idea probably dates back to a time well before the Bible popularized the notion in a couple different forms ("Judge not lest ye be judged," and "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.") All of those commands rest on the same sentiment, one that sounds hollow and wrong no matter how it's phrased. Judgment can hurt. It reveals things about us that we would rather have unknown or unspoken.

Some conservative anti-immigration writers have hit upon a novel argument for allowing fewer immigrants: immigration will lead to larger government. Here is the rationale. Immigration brings about a concomitant rise in population density. Some evidence suggests that increased population density is correlated with a rise in aggressive behavior and a paucity of manners.

If you've ever taken a course in international relations, you've probably had to read James Fearon's essay "Rationalist Explanations for War". In it, Fearon discusses whether two rational countries could ever go to war against the other. He says that because war is risky and costly, rational states always have an incentive to find a peaceful solution to any disagreement. If both sides agreed on the relative odds of victory and defeat, they should theoretically divide the issue along those likelihoods.

As President Obama struggles to keep up the facade of attempting to pay for his socialization of health insurance in America, it is becoming increasingly obvious that he has no intention of ever making the kind of unpopular but necessary decisions that will be needed to rescue our fiscal situation. Inkeeping with his general political modus operandi, he has talked about the need to save and he has made superficial gestures toward that end, but he has not initiated any meaningful legislation.

 Though I don't agree with Paul Krugman when he writes about economics, he occasionally pieces together honest-to-God arguments when he's trying to persuade his readers that the stimulus should have been bigger or that the banking sector should be made "boring" once again. When he writes about politics, his writing becomes downright childish. He is, of course, an opinion writer, but theoretically opinion writers are supposed to provide evidence for their views instead of making every statement a conclusion.