Libertarianism can have a bright future. But first it needs to break its decades-long alliance with the GOP. — I worry about the future of the libertarian movement. America faces an acutely precarious political environment, with immediate and severe threats to liberty that go beyond what P. J. O’Rourke once called, “wrong within normal parameters.” It’s not just that we’re staring down rising inflation and a possible recession. It’s…

Some thoughts on why journalists pretend Mastodon is impenetrable. — Very nearly every article about Mastodon in a mainstream journalistic publication takes pains to tell you that using it is nightmarishly complicated, the social media equivalent of emacs. The takeaway from all these explainers and think pieces, if you’re a regular reader of the commentariat, is that Mastodon isn’t for…

Conservatism and libertarianism are incompatible because they aim at fundamentally divergent political ends. — Since the rise of the “fusionist” movement that grew out of mid‐​century anti‐​communism, many libertarians have allied themselves with conservatives. While we can debate whether such alliances have been helpful in advancing libertarian goals, the fact is that conservatism and libertarianism are distinct political theories that serve different ends. The…

It’s no accident Hawley seeks to subvert the republic. It’s always been his goal. — Josh Hawley (R-MO) was the first senator to announce he’d challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. He raised his fist in salute to the mob that would soon violently overrun the seat of American democracy. Later that night, with the dust barely settled from a siege that left five dead, Hawley…

A look at what the Buddha actually said about acquiring and spending wealth. — It’s easy to get the impression Buddhism opposes earning much wealth beyond what’s “necessary,” or using wealth for one’s own benefit instead of giving away everything beyond the minimum needed to get by. After all, monks shave their heads, put on robes, and take up alms bowls. If you listen…

The first of the new Legend of the Five Rings novels is pretty fun. — I’m kind of a sucker for shared world fiction, so long as the world is great. Two years ago, I read or listened to nearly fifty Warhammer 40,000 novels in a twelve month period, which was both awesome and maybe not something to be proud of. This week, I dipped…

The Buddha’s parable of the two arrows of suffering helps us understand why our politics seems so broken and harmful, and how we can fix it. — Our politics and political culture feel pretty broken. I don’t think many of us can take in the ways we engage each other on political matters and think it’s healthy. In fact, writing a week before the presidential election, political culture looks like nothing but suffering. We don’t like the…

They can’t escape Trumpism, but they can’t win with it, either. — Donald Trump is likely to lose in a couple of weeks. Once he’s out of office, the Republican Party will need to figure out what to do next, and its options are grim. At the national level, Trumpism has never been popular. Trump’s approval ratings have stuck to the low…

The Buddha told us to interrogate our beliefs and discard those that aren’t helpful. This advice could radically change our politics. — The Buddha was a pragmatist. You can see this in the structure of the Four Noble Truths. He starts by stating the problem, then gives the cause of the problem, then notes that it can be solved, and finally offers a set of tools for succeeding in solving it. That…