Some Non-Covid Links

Tweet ^[1]

My GMU Econ colleague Bryan Caplan brilliantly explains his thoroughly non-racist reasons for opposing George Mason University’s official anti-racist policy ^[2]. Here are only two of Bryan’s reasons:

1. George Mason University is part of the government, and as such ought to scrupulously respect freedom of speech, thought, and association.  And in practice, an official Anti-Racist policy is almost certain to trample these freedoms.  Once you officially declare that racists are utterly unwelcome on campus, the impulse to officially crush them without mercy is strong.  And the willingness to shield them from unofficial persecution practically vanishes.

2. The total number of bona fide racists at GMU is tiny.  So if you identify racists accurately, a big Anti-Racist crusade would be an absurd overreaction.  Not only would it whip up hysteria over a minor problem.  It would distract scarce attention from serious problems.

Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker writes insightfully about Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and “Progressives'” intolerance of blacks, such as Sen. Scott, who dissent from “Progressive” dogma ^[3]. A slice:

During his response ^[4] Wednesday night to President Biden’s address ^[5] to a joint session of Congress, Scott managed to keep his balance. He leveled strong and smart criticisms at Biden’s agenda for the next four years.

But you wouldn’t know it to read his critics on the left. The only Black Republican in the Senate, Scott was quickly trending as “Uncle Tim ^[6]” on Twitter, as a tool of white supremacists and as a blind servant of the far right. Liberals just cannot handle ^[7] a Black conservative.

This, my friends, is (also) what racism looks like in America today.

Let a Black man speak for the GOP; let him defend conservative values that were once considered mainstream; let him challenge the current orthodoxy of systemic racism that pegs Whites as oppressors — and he will feel the wrath of those for whom, as Scott said, belief in racism is essential to political power.

Robby Soave is correct: “There is no ‘fake news’ exception to the First Amendment.” ^[8]

George Will stands up for the First Amendment ^[9].

Here’s my colleague Dan Klein on Adam Smith on Jean-Jacques Rousseau ^[10].

My intrepid Mercatus Center colleague Veronique de Rugy say “open the schools already!” ^[11]

Here’s the latest installment in George Selgin’s series on the New Deal ^[12].

Ryan Bourne is rightly critical of Joe Biden’s failure to think at the margin ^[13].

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