zenpundit.com

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

Calls for pressure to be put on Iran

EMPIREWATCH

The debate on America as an empire is heating up again. In an article here, two Brookings scholars weigh in, calling for a United States contained by its allies in multilateral structures similar to those built during the Truman- Eisenhower years of the Cold War.

The United States is not an empire. What we have here is a debate over whether American values, particularly the conservative interpretation that favors free markets, individualism and limited government – is a good thing for the world. People who have a bias toward collectivism, statism, social democracy and fear change and modernity will line up to create measures to retard America’s freedom of action because the further Bush can push the world order in favor of market rules, the less sustainable the collectivist-social democratic model is in practice both economically and politically.

THE RETURN OF ZENPUNDIT

Well, I’m back after a fairly painful bout of bicep surgery to repair a ruptured tendon. The surgery went well but the post-operative pain was a fairly draining experience. I surfed a little, posted a few times on Calpundit, wrote a little for H-Diplo but mainly I lazed around in a vicodin induced stupor and read books. I just started Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy, an underappreciated influence on the Founding Fathers for whom usually Locke and Montesquieu are often listed as important sources of Constitutional ideas. They are of course, but so were Polybius and Machiavelli.

LIBERAL JACKBOOTS ON CAMPUS…YET AGAIN:

The Campus Left, from academics to administration to campus activists are a good guide to how they would like to run the larger society if they could. Yet another attempt to suppress students who disagree with the prevailing liberal dogma. As an added bonus, the story involves ex-Clintonite and longtime campus censor Donna Shalala who brought into being an infamous ” speech code ” at Madison in her previous stint as an academic.

People like Shalala believe the Constitution need only be honored if some student’s lawyer might cost them some money or adverse publicity.

DEFENSETECH.ORG has an update on the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs.