Like awkward teenagers on a couch, libertarians and liberals continue edging closer on the sofa in nervous anticipation of a kiss. Brink Lindsey makes his move in a New Republic essay on “Liberaltarians,” which has the healthy distinction of gesturing toward actual compromises, whereas Markos “Kos” Moulistas’ overtures had consisted largely of explaining why libertarians […]

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I was just thinking about a short exchange I had a few weeks back with my friend Ben Adler over whether libertarians “have it in for” the handicapped. (It says something about D.C.—whether good or bad, I’m not sure—that his apparent belief that I hate the handicapped is not an obstacle to our describing each […]

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There is (as usual) a very long discussion in the comments at Unfogged over New York Times “Ethicist” columnist Randy Cohen’s advice to a tech support guy wondering what to do about pornographic images he’d found on his boss’ computer, some depicting “young children — clearly less than 18, possibly early teens.” I’m not accustomed […]

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Dennis Prager’s preposterous hissy fit over congressman-elect Keith Ellison’s desire to swear his oath of office is a nice illustration of John Stuart Mill’s argument that sometimes it’s useful to have wrong and misguided ideas aired, just because it forces us to more cogently articulate the correct ones, as Eugene Volokh ably does. (You can […]

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Andrew Sullivan quotes a reader making the familiar point that drug prohibition often seems to be motivated less by a concern for the harms of addiction than by sheer puritanical terror of pleasure. It occurred to me that as often as we invoke that impulse, I’d never thought much about its origins. But it makes […]

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