Republicans 50 and up watched President Ronald Reagan and Speaker Newt Gingrich deliver national leadership. Today, Republicans of all ages watch “their” House and Senate and see nothing of the kind… A Republican-run legislative branch isn’t supposed to enable Iran Bailouts, rising deficits, the importation of saboteurs, the destruction of private health insurance, wars on entire industries, and IRS corruption. Read More ›
Anyone who has read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings can gather that their author hated tyranny, but few know that the novelist who once described himself as a hobbit “in all but size” was—even by hobbit standards—a zealous proponent of economic freedom and small government. There is a growing concern among many that the West is sliding into political, economic, and Read More ›
We’re not doomed. At least not according to George Gilder’s challenging and insightful Knowledge and Power.
Plenty of nations have lost their way, and this present distress is not the first time we’ve gotten off course. But according to Gilder, although human beings are wired to receive information, we are currently starved of new ideas because our current ruling class in politics and media is basically just transmitting the same old noise. According to Gilder, when politicians try to match their message to ‘public opinion’ they stultify the political process. The job of leaders is not to reflect back ghostly images of the already spectral enough phantom known as public opinion. The job of leaders is to teach the public something they don’t already know. The third and final installment of our interview with Gilder follows below:
Jerry: “I kind of imagine you speak this signal into the current intellectual milieu and the libertarians say, “Wait, what’s all this stuff about family?” And the sort of nostalgic right say, “Wait, what are all these new jobs from overseas? They’re going to mess up American culture.” I mean, you’re at odds, to some degree, with the sort of religious right nostalgists, “let’s keep everything 9-5”, lunch bucket kind of thing. You’re also at odds with the libertarians who want to redefine family and redefine the traditional moral code—“
George: “Those are fair statements.”
Jerry: “On the other hand, you are, I think, creating a new intellectual structure in which those divergent elements can be reunited, almost reuniting the Reagan coalition on information theory.”
George: “Yeah, I think so. That’s really the purpose of it; it’s to show that both sides are right, it’s to put freedom on a more secure foundation and to put constitutional government and political leadership on a better foundation. I mean, all the heroic inventions of entrepreneurs on the frontiers of science are ultimately dependent on the discipline, moral codes, and leadership by politicians and leaders and ministers and priests, and the whole body of people defending the low-entropy carriers are also indispensable to the high-entropy creators.”
Jerry: “So, we await a new political entrepreneur not to wait for the public to understand this on his own, but to take this message that reunites the Reagan coalition and go out and actively teach it and create a demand for the supply of these answers in the political sphere.”
George: “I think that’s right. And I’m very optimistic. You know, the good thing about a knowledge economy, an economy of mind, is that it can change as quickly as people’s minds can change. In my book, Knowledge and Power, there’s a whole chapter full of examples of countries that have radically transformed their economies in weeks once policies have been changed. From the United States, we’ve reduced government spending 61% in two years after the second world war, with the Republican Congress of 1946. We cut tax rates all over the place through the joint tax return. We dismantled all the regulatory apparatus of the wartime, and much of the new deal. All Keynesian economists thought that the result would be a catastrophe, Paul Samuelson said it would be the worst disruption and disaster and depression in the history of economics. Instead, we launched what’s now looked back on as a golden age of American economic progress.”
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Slade Gorton’s half century in politics began in 1956. Together with Dan Evans and Joel Pritchard, he was a key player in generating a new wave of progressive Republican politics in Washington State. He helped elect the youngest governor in state history; argued 14 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court as attorney general; upset a legend to win a seat Read More ›
Monday's election was a political transformation that saw the sudden collapse of the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois, and the surprising rise of the NDP. The real winner, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has turned squareness into charisma.
Read More ›Guests included Bruce Agnew, Director of Cascadia Center. Here is the link to the KUOW web page for this episode, with audio links and guest list.
This article, published by National Post, mentions Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley Smith: Pro-lifers have discovered shared values with critics of biotechnological research and commercial reproductive technology, such as the former Ralph Nader lawyer, Wesley Smith.
This article, published by New Oxford Review, contains an review of Discovery Institute Senior Fellow John G. West’s book Darwin Day in America: John G. West, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, reveals here to what extent scientific materialism has become the foundation for much of American politics and culture, and how dangerous this is for democracy. The rest of the Read More ›
This article, published by the Jerusalem Post, includes an interview with Discovery Institute Senior Fellow George Gilder: George Gilder has been famous in the United States for more than three decades. Well, infamous would be a more accurate adjective – considering the political-cultural climate in which he emerged and to which he has devoted his life’s research and writings. The Read More ›