A Classical Liberal Blog on Political Science, Economics, Philosophy, Law, and More
With this post, I'm reporting updated results on the ideological ideal points of New Hampshire legislators, introduced previously here. In that analysis, I found that libertarians in the New Hampshire House in 2014 tended to vote with the right (and vice versa) on most roll-call votes scored by the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. That included … Continue reading Update and Further Analysis of the New Hampshire Legislature
The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance does a Liberty Rating each year in which they analyze liberty-related roll-call votes of state representatives and senators and grade them. (The NHLA is a great government accountability organization, by the way, and well worth supporting; a lifetime membership is only $100.) I used their roll-call votes for the 2014 … Continue reading This Is What a Legislature with a Bunch of Libertarians Looks Like
Ross Tilchin writes up the results of a Brookings study on libertarians in the Republican Party, citing some of the research I have done here on Pileus. The main point Tilchin argues is that libertarians are at a severe disadvantage nationally within the Republican Party, relative to competing constituencies like moderates and the religious right. … Continue reading The Libertarian Challenge Within the GOP
I have just posted a couple of my working papers to SSRN for those who are interested. They are as follows: "Public Policy and Quality of Life: An Empirical Analysis of Interstate Migration, 2000-2012" Abstract: Individuals and households choose their political jurisdiction of residence on the basis of expected income differentials and jurisdiction-specific characteristics covered … Continue reading Working Papers on Federalism & Public Policy
Is federalism for progressives? Libertarians, who are generally enthusiastic about the competitive federalism model, have tried to argue that the model provides, at the very least, a kind of modus vivendi for all ideological camps, allowing citizens in each state to have roughly the kind of government that they want. Relative to a single national … Continue reading Does Status Quo U.S. Federalism Advantage Progressives?
Jonathan Haidt is everywhere these days, giving interviews and TED talks, promoting his working papers in the media, writing for the websites yourmorals.org and civilpolitics.org, and publishing The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012). A moral psychologist by training, Haidt has successfully cleared the jump … Continue reading *The Righteous Mind* by Jonathan Haidt
In his book The Righteous Mind (review coming soon) and in a coauthored paper with Ravi Iyer and others, moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt claims that libertarians are essentially amoral(*): they care less about care, fairness, authority, loyalty, and sanctity than conservatives and liberals and care most of all about liberty. (I blogged the latter study … Continue reading Haidt’s Biased Survey Evidence on Libertarians (Updated)
Once you control for everything else, conservative states don't take more federal grant money than liberal states - in fact, they may even tend to take less.
Many electrons have been spilled over that Pew survey showing that atheists, agnostics, Jews, and Mormons know more about world religions, including Christianity, than Protestants and Catholics (I got 32/32!). Even after controlling for education, these four religious groups know more about world religions in general (however, white evangelicals know more about Christianity than Jews, … Continue reading Atheists Are Just Smarter
Note: This is the second in an ongoing series of posts on NIB (Natural is Better) ideology. The first can be found here. More to come. In 1992, JAMA published an article that began with the following statement: A new paradigm for medical practice is emerging. Evidence-based medicine de-emphasizes intuition, unsystematic clinical experience, and pathophysiologic rationale … Continue reading Who needs evidence? (the NIB ideology, part 2)
The comedian Michael Feldman wrote a funny and informative piece this week in the NY Times on the raw milk controversy in Wisconsin. Many small dairy farmers are clamoring for legislation making it easier to sell raw milk. Interest group politics infuse this issue, but the underlying ideology is the point of this post. Raw … Continue reading The NIB Ideology (Part 1)
Emory political scientist Alan Abramowitz has done two studies of how voting ideology affected the electoral fortunes of Republican and Democratic senatorial incumbents over the 2000-2008 period. The study on Republicans is here, and the study on Democrats is here. Over this time period, 57 of 61 Democratic incumbents won their re-election campaigns, while just … Continue reading Does Ideological Radicalism Hurt Republican Incumbents More than Democrats?
Most conservatives/libertarians I know are not fans of David Brooks. I must admit that I am a big fan, though I disagree often. In a recent post I classified him as a centrist. In his column today, he says he is a centrist. My question is this: Are he and I are right? Is it … Continue reading See, he is a Centrist
While reading an interview of macroeconomist (and rational expectations theorist) Thomas J. Sargent in Arjo Klamer's interesting book, Conversations with Economists (1983), I happened upon this notable passage: I went through ROTC, was commissioned, and then worked in the systems analysis office of the Pentagon. It changed me in some ways, made me more conservative. I came to … Continue reading What Will Today’s Veterans Think of Government in the Future?
PILEUS 