I am a notch more skeptical on what Sen. Paul was trying to accomplish than Peter was on the podcast yesterday.  But McCain and Graham, with whom I probably am closer to agreement on the drone issue, have behaved like the worst kind of caricature. 

I second the request to hear it as a podcast

I used a Krugman textbook for an international trade course (his specialty).  While there might have been a nuance or two that seemed too anti-market, for the most part it was classicly pro-trade.

More importantly, I think that any intro to Macroeconomics course will be overly Keynesian (especially if it is teaching to the AP test).  In my experience with macro course, intro was 90% Keynes, intermediate about 50%, and advanced 0%.  It's unfortunate that most students only learn the introduction.  I was fortunate that in all three courses my teachers/professors were more or less conservative, so that even when we were learning Keynesian material, there was some skepticism to it. 

If impressions can be fostered by one side with no rebuttal, we've already lost no matter what that perception is.  But why aren't the left's policies considered evidence of ignorance about the world?  Socialism failed. Defined benefit retirement and health systems are inherently unsustainable.  The combination of the welfare state and loosening of traditional moral norms have lost the War on Poverty.

By all means, let's not praise stupidity.  But the conservative world view is firmly rooted in how the world works.  It's common sense.  The utopian fantasies of the liberals may appear in peer-reviewed pieces, but they don't work.

I am Jewish and grew up in a community that has Asian-Americans as the largest ethnic minority.  I think that Asian-Americans tend to vote similarly to their white neighbors, and most live in liberal areas.  That's probably the biggest explanation.

I read that George W. Bush in 2004 received over 40% of the Asian vote.  That would suggest social issues are not the dominant factor, compared to, say, immigration.  I would also suggest that while conservatives may view it as silly, Obama has positioned himself as the "Asian" president.

What bothers me is that when discussing social issues, immigration, minorities, Republicans who advocate changes in position engage in creating the same straw men that liberals do.  I'm all for making argument both within the conservative movement and to the public at large.  But when some Republicans advocate getting rid of social conservatives as a matter of expediency rather than after carefully constructed and won arguments over specific areas of policy, then I think that will just fuel liberal distaste for the GOP ("see, half of them hate the SoCons, too!") and push some conservatives away, rather than net us any new voters.

I normally like Stephens, but that piece was all assertion, no argument.

It may be true when it comes to opinion polling that support for partial-birth abortion and opposition to a rape and incest exemption are equally extreme (I think both are at roughly 20%).  However, given our current legal regime, they are not politically equivalent.  Partial-birth abortion could be legal with just simple majorities in legislatures.  Outlawing abortion in cases or rape and incest would require overturning Roe v. Wade, and quite possibly another Supreme Court case that would have to go further allowing such laws.  In addition, of course, there would have to be new legislation.  Thus, the extreme pro-life side is not in the practical position to impose their view on the other 80% that the extreme pro-choice side is.

I'm not married, but I come from a mixed family.  Whether you watch the returns or not, you should approach the results by what they mean for the future rather than as if you're rooting for two different teams in a game.  Express a Romney victory as a relief rather than a celebration.

And to those who believe in a political litmus test, remember the time of the wedding is only a moment in one's political life.  My parents married in 1981 as two two-times Carter voting liberals.  In the early 90s my dad turned toward the GOP and is now a devoted Fox News watcher.  My mom is still liberal and loves MSNBC.  But they each have a TV and they don't let it affect their relationship. 

You're right.  I doubt Obama will ever knock off the nonsense.  But it seems like a reasonable position for Romney and other Republicans to have to respond to the issue of those children.

First off, I want to say that I think the idea of "energy independence" is a dumb protectionist slogan that has captured about 95% of the population and a higher proportion of politicians.  In that vain, I'm not sure whether to laugh or take heart that some (like Michelle Bachmann) have referred to the XL pipeline, which would provide Canadian oil, as an aid to energy independence.

What I believe in, with energy or any other product, is efficiency.  So to The King Prawn's question, I believe both sides can be okay.  The US obviously puts up to many regulatory barriers to energy production, both raw and processed, but even without that the oil we would drill would not be cheap.  So we should be expecting to import cheaper crude.  But processing the oil takes a lot of capital, which we have.  Thus, it is efficient for the US to import raw crude and export processed energy products.

In other areas it is the opposite.  For example, the US is still a strong cotton grower.  But manufacturing apparel is usually labor intensive.  Asia has a lot of cheap labor.  So exporting cotton and importing clothes is also efficient.

I'd like to correct the misconception I had in the podcast that Romney is immune from the courting of Donald Trump that the other candidates have done.  They met last month; see:  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/09/27/courting_trump_holds_risks_for_romney_other_candidates.html

More importantly, Romney has hewed closely to the Trump line on China, see:  http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/romney-donald-trump-delightful

If he actually became president, that's a lot more consequential, and wrong, than the birther non-sense.

I think a distinction has to be made between conservatism as a temperament and and conservatism as a political movement.  Burke, and many of the other intellectuals commonly associated as fathers of conservatism, are more temperamental than political conservatives.  The temperament is what says the conservatism is about conserving, no matter what (or at least what isn't evil).  But that has led, in different times and places, to quite dissimilar political programs under the guise of conservatism (the same for liberalism).  Most American conservatives in 2011 can share both the politics and the mindset of conservatism without dissonance.  However, I think few will accept that clause about class in society, believing that to be an artificial, Marxist distinction.  British conservatives, on the other hand, may well agree with that tenet, out of the different history of their country.  The same temperament leads to different conclusions.  I believe the American political program of conservatism is superior.  Were I to move to the UK, I would still be skeptical about class distinctions. 

I don't think there is a magic tax rate, it always depends on many economic variables.  But other countries with lower statutory rates on  corporations are able to raise more revenue from that tax in proportion to their economies.  Ireland, I think, is the shining example of this.  Additionally, the US currently taxes corporate profits no matter where in the world they are earned.  In practice, this keeps a lot of American companies from repatriating foreign profits as long as possible to avoid paying the tax.  This is a major contributing factor to the large cash reserves of many companies.  If the US lowered the tax on those foreign profits, they could be repatriated and yield some direct tax revenues, as well as new investment in America cash dividends to American investors, who could then spend that money as they please.

Using the term "competitive" advantage suggests that you don't quite understand what Ricardo meant.  Ricardo talked about comparative advantage.  This means that who produces what is not determined by who is best/most efficient at producing the good or service, but rather after considering how much capacity they have to give up producing anything else.  The United States may be the best at producing everything, but that doesn't mean that we should.

As someone for whom advancing free trade is my number one issue, that term "competitive" advantage is a huge pet peeve.  It makes it sound like if you think the USA is better off not producing something, that we're losing some competition.  It's not the absolute terms that matter, it's the comparative or relative differences that do.

G-d created the world out of nothing, which I wouldn't consider the most conservative act, and while Adam proved that humans cannot maintain a utopian paradise, his loss of it was not exactly conservative either.  Thus, I would put forward Noah.  He maintained the standards G-d had commanded while others around him innovated in pernicious ways.  They were punished and he survived to perpetuate the human race.

Seriously, though, discussions of the political spectrum before the left was nailed down by Marxist socialism don't make much sense.  Much of the conservative agenda of 2011 is intellectually consistent with the classical liberalism of the 18th century. 

I had to read it junior year of high school.  I don't remember it all that well, except that I thought it was completely overrated.

I yield  to no one in my opposition to the goal of NPV, but I think calling it an end run around the Constitution is mistaken.  The Constitution clearly gives the right to state legislatures to figure out any way the like to choose the electors for the Electoral College.  It's really the state legislators who are violating their duties to their constituents at the state level who are at fault.