Phil Magness exposes the hypocrisy – and dishonesty – of Princeton University historian Kevin Kruse. Here’s Phil’s conclusion:
Such examples suggest a recurring problem in the history profession, which traditionally relies on close textual readings and citation-heavy discussions of other historians as it scrutinizes and interprets the past. The American Historical Association’s statement on professional conduct warns that “writers plagiarize, for example, when they fail to use quotation marks around borrowed material and to cite the source, use an inadequate paraphrase that makes only superficial changes to a text, or neglect to cite the source of a paraphrase.” Even with proper footnoting, the organization notes by example, plagiarism may still be present. Repeated passages with only “cosmetic alterations indicate a lack of synthesis and original thought and represent a theft of [the borrowed] text.”
In Kruse’s case, the passages from Bayor and Sugrue may portend more serious problems in the academy. In an age of declining academic rigor, certain works seem to get a pass—provided that they promote particular ideological narratives that enjoy a following among elite academics and journalists.
Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley calls for more immigration into the United States. A slice:
This post-pandemic labor shortage has been driven by reckless government spending and misguided monetary policies that flooded the market with money. Covid relief measures—eviction bans, student-loan payment pauses, supplemental unemployment benefits—gave too many able-bodied workers an incentive to stay home rather than rejoin the labor force. The food-stamp work requirement was suspended in 2020, and the monthly benefit is now double what it was in 2019. The upshot is that there are more people on food stamps today than there were pre-Covid, even while the unemployment rate is close to a 50-year low and there are nearly twice as many job openings as people looking for work.
Here’s part 2 of Randy Holcombe’s “The Research Interests of Academic Economists.”
My GMU Econ colleague Bryan Caplan argues that cancelling student-loan debt is unforgivable.
David Beckworth talks with George Selgin.
“Why Biden’s Claim of Cutting the Deficit Is False, in a Single Chart.”
David Bell decries “the emergence of neo-fascism in public health.” A slice:
We have all seen prominent health professionals publicly vilify and denigrate colleagues who sought to restate principles on which we were all trained: absence of coercion, informed consent, and non-discrimination. Rather than put people first, a professional colleague informed me in a discussion on evidence and ethics that the role of public health physicians was to implement instructions from the government. Collective obedience.
This has been justified by ‘the greater good’- an undefined term as no government pushing this narrative has, in two years, released clear cost-benefit data demonstrating that the ‘good’ is greater than the harm. However, the actual tally, though important, is not the point. The ‘greater good’ has become a reason for the public health professions to annul the concept of the primacy of individual rights.
