I agree that there is "ample grounds for adopting free speech skepticism." It gives too much power to people like Susan Brison to bore us with their gender/race/culture/equality/defining identity theories. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5dftF2a-tk. The title of this video is "Santorum booed off stage." Several newspaper outlets said the same thing. I do agree with you that many of the students may have wanted an honest dialogue.

But repeatedly talking over someone is not how people express interest in a conversation; it is how they smother something they don't want to hear. Hissing, and booing an invited speaker who has no way of responding is not the way to achieve discourse. And from the sound of it, that wasn't just a few people. 

It's not a question of doing business abroad(though it would be nice, as some paleoconservatives have advocated, to eliminate taxes on corporate profits earned inside the U.S. as an incentive to keep jobs here). The issue is not that we don't want to export to the EU, China, global markets, etc; of course we do. And yes, I am not the Thomas Friedman type who thinks globalization is some fantastic new phenomenon. Of course foreign shocks created domestic panics in 1914 and 1929, and America cannot realistically disengage from the world economy. My feeling is that we have sabotaged ourselves by overexposure to those aspects of the global economy that do not work(the "bad" of globalization) and not being aggressive enough to set the "terms of integration" to bias the game sufficiently to our advantage in foreign markets that DO offer opportunities(the "good" of globalization).

The media doesn't like him, but a Republican-controlled House did this to him in 1997:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/govt/leadership/stories/012297.htm

The man also resigned as Speaker barely four years after his "Republican Revolution" began because his own party saw him as an embarrassment. He basically undermined his party in the budget fight of 1995 when he claimed that he was trying to avenge being made to sit in the back of the plane, as Henry Hyde put it, "the revolution was never the same again." Classic narcissist, goes around comparing himself to Reagan and Thatcher.Ann Coulter makes this point better than I do with a long list of Gingrich's crimes against conservatism and conservatives: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47570. 

But I really don't think so. Margaret Thatcher was a conservative and she looked to America, rather than hearkening to some fading British hierarchical structure. She even said that the Tories of today would be the Whigs of yesterday. I think that at least in the West, we have replaced autocracies and noblities with media-appointed elites who find it more important to control the culture than to control the people and whose method is to replace existing culture with the new "utopia" of complete equality. We don't live in political tyranny so much as cultural tyranny. Of course, with die hard Marxists, we may see Cultural Revolutions as well. 

How will Romney govern similarly to the current president? The man seems like a mainstream conservative as far as economic policy is concerned. Unlike "9-9-9," he seems to have an economic plan that has been thoroughly thought-out. On social policy, just looking at his personal life and the way he seems to view the world, his foray into a pro-choice position years ago looks like an attempt to stay viable in Massachusetts because he seems the furthest thing from a social libertine. And as far as the "no-conviction" charge, it is pretty hard to govern Massachusetts as a Republican. And yet Romney did it, without completely kowtowing to the Massachusetts legislature, even managing to effect significant cuts in state spending. To stick with conservatism in the toughest neighborhood in the country appears to be good preparation for sticking with conservatism as President of a centre-right country. In order to govern the full hippie version of California in the 1960's, Ronald Reagan did make many compromises, including one on legalized abortion. He went on to be a great president. 

I agree. But if there really was a settlement, no matter how petty, it should not be too hard for Mr. Cain to dig up what happened. It would be a model for all campaigners--and he will be inoculated from similar charges in the future. I am confident that whatever the facts are, they will not stop him from becoming President if his policy proposals and campaign continue to resonate(his recent nuclear-China gaffe worries me far more than any made-up harassment allegation), which is why I want him to just pre-empt and do the poking-around himself to prove there's no there there. 

And Funeral Guy, I saw that article as well--nestled in a tiny corner of the news page which was overflowing with Troy Davis's appeal antics. My first response was elation. A white guy brutally murdered a black guy in the American South, and he is executed. A black guy brutally murdered a white guy in the American South, and he is executed. There is coherence to the application of the law in both cases. Good for America.

Agreed. My first impulse would be exactly the same. But I think we would both be restrained by the secondary conservative impulse against vigilantism, in order to let the state do its job of rendering justice, however slow and imperfect it might be, and attempt to change the law to reduce the gap. Which is why I get really, really irritated when the state forfeits its basic obligation to uphold a right to life through punishment and deterrence of murderers and silences attempts to change the law with judicial proclamations.

"You know, I'm personally against 4th trimester abortions, but I wouldn't infringe upon anyone's reproductive rights with my personal views."

Also, this type of private/parochial school faith-based solution will probably not find favor in government settings. 

My Jesuit high school routinely implemented a program where it would go out to underserved school districts in San Jose and go recruiting. These students were expected to maintain high standards and attend "get up to speed" extra classes and homework sessions taught by Jesuit staff in order to stand a chance of continuing. I remember hearing that this program was brutal, but it worked. This was affirmative action in that it brought opportunity to socioeconomic minorities, but there was no set number that had to be admitted, candidates passed a rigorous interview process, and were held accountable to a higher work ethic than the rest of us.

By income-based AA and "parameters,"  I mean that universities can be creative in how they assimilate students with different educational backgrounds and how they choose to incorporate high school background, ability in local context, etc in their admission process without discriminating by race. Of course, devising such a system would be difficult. A lot of it would be going out and raising money to set up workshops, alternate learning opportunities, and information sessions in undesirable places. It's far easier and lazier to do racial quotas. But it's doable.

It is also important to point out that the real markers of future success, in this century, have little to do with "diversity." They are a stable two-parent family which gets the kid up in the morning, drives him to piano class and math tutoring, and is immersed in the kid's life. A lot of white kids, and very many black kids don't have that.  

I'm fine with income-based affirmative action, though within very specific, limited parameters. A mindless obsession with diversity(in any form) should not be the sole goal of every human endeavor. It is far-sighted to give poorer people who have worked hard a dividend so that the country can unleash their human capital; it is unjust to give middle-class blacks and Hispanics privileges that middle class whites and Asians do not receive. 

I am not a huge fan of Mrs. Palin but really, Joe McGinniss needs to get a life. Stop trying to get the last squeeze of publicity from the rotting fruit of Palinmania. Go write horrible stories about someone new. No one cares with whom Sarah Palin hooked up, did drugs--because, you know, it's better to do a "little blow" than snort cocaine--or smoked. Journalists and mediapersons love Palin because they think she is an alien specimen or genetic freak that they can study obsessively or poke to observe hostile reactions. What does she read? Whom does she date? We'd really rather not know. We have more serious things to think about. 

Great question, Diane. I'd still say no. I haven't heard very many conservatives telling me that John McCain would have made a much better president. I think people are looking for someone who would be the complete anti-Obama.