I'm leaving tonight's debate live chat early to make it down to my church's evening Ash Wednesday service where the pastor will remind all in attendance that "for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" as we receive the ashes.  The Ash Wednesday service is one of the most meaningful of the entire church calendar for me because I, despite a great hope in eternity, continually struggle with the acceptance of death. 

A passage in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1993 speech "We have ceased to see the purpose" (of which we discussed a portion here) captured my attention recently, and I think it aptly speaks to why our culture is so uncomfortable with death.

And nothing so bespeaks the current helplessness of our spirit, our intellectual disarray, as the loss of a clear and calm attitude towards death.  The greater his well-being, the deeper the chilling fear of death cuts into the soul of modern man.  This mass fear, a fear the ancients did not know, was born of our insatiable, loud, and bustling life.  Man has lost the sense of himself as a limited point in the universe, albeit one possessed of free will.  He began to deem himself the center of his surroundings, adapting not himself to the world but the world to himself.  And then, of course, the thought of death becomes unbearable: it is the extinction of the entire universe at a stroke.

Having refused to recognize the unchanging Higher Power above us, we have filled that space with personal imperatives, and suddenly life has become a harrowing prospect indeed.

In an essay in the Weekly Standard, Roger Kimball writes about why there will never be another "great American novel." Kimball argues that the fall of the novel as an art form is, in part, the result of the rise of a culture that values pure entertainment above all--the rise, in other words, of what we today call the pop culture. During the heyday of the novel in this country--when Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner were writing deeply meaningful stories---the culture still viewed art as a source of spiritual meaning. As Kimball points out:

Wallace Stevens . . . suggested that in the modern age, “an age of disbelief,” art takes the place of religion as “life’s redemption.” In such an age, Stevens wrote, “it is for the poet to supply the satisfactions of belief.”

Today, the best art (defined broadly) does not speak to these transcendent facets of the human conditions. Rather, it tends to beat us into submission by shocking us with its perversions. This is true of both high art and low art. I wrote about this syndrome as it plays out in the high culture earlier this week. In the low culture, there are also plenty of examples. The one that immediately comes to mind for me is Rihanna's hit song S&M.

So, is our culture doomed?

Kimball writes:

Perhaps Hegel was right when he said that “art in its highest expression is and remains for us a thing of the past.” Hegel’s thought was that if, traditionally, art had been tied to the truth, our culture’s commitment to scientific rationality had in an important sense led to the replacement of art by reason. Art would not disappear, Hegel thought; it would simply degenerate to a form of entertainment, a vacation from rather than a revelation of reality.

Of course, Hegel was wrong about a great many things. And perhaps he is wrong about this, too. If our tendency to tie truth to reason—to look, when we are really in earnest, to the scientist rather than the artist for truth—describes an important aspect of our culture, there is another aspect summed up (for example) by Wallace Stevens when he suggested that in the modern age, “an age of disbelief,” art takes the place of religion as “life’s redemption.” In such an age, Stevens wrote, “it is for the poet to supply the satisfactions of belief.”

I bring up the Wallace Stevens quote again because it makes me think that there is hope yet for our culture. Redemption is a religious concept, and as we all know, there is little room for religion in today's pop or high culture. But that concept did manage to sneak its way into the secular culture not too long ago. I'm thinking here of the massively popular show 24, which is about the heroic and spiritually adrift national security agent Jack Bauer, who gives up everything in order to serve his country. In between seasons 6 and 7 of 24, when Bauer hits a moral trough, the producers released a special two-hour show about Bauer's condition and they called it. . . . Redemption.

 In fact, if you watch 24, it's amazing to see how much of its lessons--we can even call them moral lessons--fly in the face of the standard pop culture narrative that celebrates deviancy. 24 is about heroism, ideals, doing the right thing, and talking responsibility for your actions. There is clearly a market for its messages because when it was running, 24 was one of the most popular shows on television.The novel's days may be over, and that may, in general, be a negative indictment of our culture--but there are some gems of goodness there, too. We just have to look harder to uncover them.

Think back to a month ago today. Newt Gingrich had won the South Carolina primary the night before by a commanding margin and the question on everybody's mind was whether he was going to be able to send Mitt Romney to the ropes in Florida.  Go back another month and you find yourself in the holiday run-up to the Iowa Caucuses, a time when Rick Santorum was still regarded as little more than an asterisk and Romney and Gingrich were running roughly even in national polling. Oh, how things have changed.

Here we are, less than a week  before the Michigan and Arizona primaries, and this race looks to be a dead heat between Romney and Santorum in the Wolverine State and an increasingly tight contest between the same duo in the Grand Canyon State (CNN/Time, PPP, and Rasmussen all have had Romney down to a single-digit lead in the last week, while the most recent NBC poll still shows the former governor with a blowout margin). Newt Gingrich teeters on the brink of irrelevance.

As the candidates take to the stage in Mesa, Arizona tonight for the first debate in nearly a month, the stakes for each of them (with the single exception of Ron Paul, whose candidacy is flamboyantly immune to considerations of electability) are high.

For Romney, the task is (as it has been) not to convince conservatives that he is worthy of their love (no turnaround artist is that good), but that he is tolerable enough to earn their submission.

For Santorum, the goal has to be to define himself in the mainstream of the Republican Party, defusing the growing media meme that his candidacy is the logical conclusion of the work that John Lithgow's character began in "Footloose."

For Gingrich, the objective is simple: get noticed. The most remarkable fact about the last month of this campaign is that the most outsized personality in the race has garnered the least attention. Part of that owed to his last few debate performances, where the former speaker's demeanor made it seem like he had been chasing Xanax with cough syrup. Tonight, the fiery, energetic Newt of debates past has to reemerge. The viability of his campaign likely depends upon it.

This looks to be one of the last debates of this primary cycle (it could even be the last). It also promises to be one of the most significant. As such, we hope our members will join us here on the site for our live chat tonight at 8 PM Eastern/5 PM Pacific.

Perhaps wasted on an already enlightened crowd, this tale is for those preoccupied with subsidizing special interests.  People have to start with children's books before they can read novels...

Every day you walk by the pond in the park and every day the swans attract your attention.  Not the ducks or geese paddling about, but the swans.  They are special birds, yet no one else in the park seems to be acknowledging them.  So you take it upon yourself to give them a treat of bread crumbs, which you had leftover anyway.  They deserve it for being so extraordinary.  They enjoy snatching them up and you enjoy feeding them. Taking care of those special creatures feels right and important and it gives you something to do.  It’s more satisfying to engage with the swans than sit on a bench and simply watch them.

After this becomes your refreshing morning ritual, you begin to notice that there is one particular swan who never seems to get any breadcrumbs.  You start throwing them in his direction, trying at first to throw some to the others to keep them off on their own.  Yet every time, he misses out.  He just can’t seem to get to them.  Again and again, you try to single him out, all the while convinced that, though the swans are identical, this particular swan is the same one being overlooked.  Soon though, when your morning feeding becomes enough of a pattern that even the least special of birds would notice, the geese and ducks begin to swarm.  Now you must not only attempt to feed exclusively the helpless swan, but in general all the swans while warding off the objectionable geese.  It’s maddening, yet you are resolved to be their benefactor regardless because everyone else is passing obliviously through the park without a care.  What would the swans do if you didn't care?

The leftover breadcrumbs are now not enough for the unique and needy swan, not enough for all the swans, and certainly not enough for the geese and ducks.  You buy a whole loaf of bread for the express purpose of feeding them, even though this adds to your grocery expenses.  What started as a spontaneous morning activity now requires thought, preparation, and execution.  How will you get that one swan his own morsels?  How can you punish the geese for involving themselves in what was only meant for swans?  Never do you consider that you can stop feeding them.  What will they eat for breakfast if not the breadcrumbs you provide!  They can’t survive in the pond without it! They can't survive without you!

And then one day a park ranger comes over to you.  Having watched you incredulously morning after morning, he finally points angrily at a clearly marked sign at the edge of the pond.

Do Not Feed The Swans.

In Chandler, Arizona today, Governor Romney announced an initiative to lower individual rates on every American by 20 percent.  Contrasting his approach with President Obama's, Romney said, "Raising taxes will kill jobs. My plan will create jobs. That's the difference between the two of us."  Excellent contrast.

Just in the event we become too enthusiastic, Romney tempered his initiative by saying he would limit allowable deductions and exemptions for high income earners, "…so that we make sure the top 1% keeps paying the current share they're paying or more."  Thus does the premise of the left become the foundation for this Republican yet again.  And in case you didn't understand that he prefers to divide fairness according to class, he added, "We want middle-income Americans to be the place we focus our help, because it's middle-income Americans that have been hurt by this Obama economy."

Why the division?  Why the picking and choosing which class gets more relief?  Why buy into the premise of the progressive thereby giving it, and by extension Obama, undeserved legitimacy?   Why set yourself up to have your words thrown back at you in the general when you will hear Obama say, "Governor, you yourself agreed with me that the top 1% percent needs to pay '…the current share or more.'"  Why does this gentleman insist on this kind of thing?   

As I've said before, if he's the nominee, I'll vote for him, but I may need a Tylenol subsidy before it's all said and done.  In the meantime, can someone get this guy a few Milton Friedman videos?  

In the Wall Street Journal today, a moving, exquisite tribute to baseball Hall of Famer Gary Carter, who last week died of brain cancer at 57.  The author, Ricochet's

own Andrew Klavan:

I can't really say how serious I was when I began to contemplate suicide. But I remember one night, sitting alone in my room in darkness, smoking cigarette after cigarette as I considered the ways in which I might put an end to myself.

The radio was on, playing a Mets game. I'd been trying to listen before the dark thoughts took over. By the time the ninth inning came around, I wasn't paying attention at all.

One sentence ran through my mind again and again: "I don't know how I can live."

Before I knew it, the game had ended and Carter—who apparently had beaten out a grounder to reach first base—was giving a postgame interview. The interviewer asked him how he managed to outrun the throw when his knees were so bad from years of playing catcher, squatting behind home plate.

Carter was a devout Christian with just the bright, inspiring Tim Tebow sort of personality our media can't stand. He was forever thanking Jesus Christ in postgame interviews. He once remarked that he could see the smiles curdle on the faces of unbelieving journalists when he did it, but he felt he had to tell the truth.

I was not a Christian then—not yet—and if Carter had preached religion at that moment, it would have gone right past me. But he didn't. He said something else, something much simpler but also true. I don't remember the words exactly but a fair translation would be this: "Sometimes you just have to play in pain."

Carter's words somehow broke through my self-pitying despair. "Play in pain?" I thought. "Hell, I can do that. That's one thing I actually know how to do."

I had been looking for answers but I didn't know the answers. I had been looking for solutions, but solutions were for another day. It hadn't occurred to me that maybe, for now at least, the only way to go on living was to do like the great athletes do and just tough it out....

No one can demand that celebrities live well, but I don't think it's too much to ask them to behave well and be a little bit careful about what they say and represent. They are role models whether they like it or not. And someone might be listening to them in the dark.

So goodbye, Kid. And thanks. You did it the way it ought to be done.

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to answer a question that ought to answer itself: Can the State deny educational opportunities to its citizens based on race?   The answer, of course, should be "no," but unfortunately, the Court said "yes" in its 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger which upheld racial preferences in public university admissions.  Speculation abounds that the Justices will overturn Grutter (with Alito's vote replacing O'Connor's, and with Kagan recused).  Let's hope they do.

The new case involves the racial admissions test used at the University of Texas, Austin.  At UT, each applicant to the freshman class is assigned a "Personal Achievement Index," in which race is used as a factor.  Moreover, the applicant's race is listed on page one of the application and "reviewers are aware of it throughout the evaluation," according to one UT official.  The Fifth Circuit upheld the UT policy as a faithful application of Grutter.  All the more reason to overturn Grutter.

The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment states that no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Here you have a State using its power over public universities to favor certain races over others.   In Grutter, the Court pretended to analyze such policies under "strict scrutiny" finding that "racial diversity" in the classroom is a "compelling state interest."  But of course it is not.  A university's mission is to educate qualified students.  Racial diversity is utterly irrelevant to that mission.  Intellectual diversity, yes, and some supporters of affirmative action argue that race is a good proxy for intellectual point of view -- an argument that speaks volumes about the "identity politics" philosophy of the left. 

If the Court really employed "strict scrutiny," affirmative action programs would be toast. In fact, such programs should not survive even the most lenient form of review -- rational basis -- for what is the "rational basis" for accepting, or rejecting, a university applicant based on the color of his skin?

It happened this morning, about 55 minutes into the podcast.  Rob--so busy supervising casting and screenwriting for his new show just now that it may take him another day or two to appear here to explain himself--Rob finally came right out and said it:

"I'm for Romney."

Gleickgate: I do hope you've been enjoying it as much as Mollie and I have been. As I'm sure you'll be aware, Gleickgate - or Fakegate as it used to be known till the identity of the chief perp Peter Gleick was revealed - was the attempt by the climate alarmist "community" to engineer their own version of Climategate. Instead it blew up in their faces when it was revealed that the most damning document they had unearthed had in fact been faked.

What interests me most about the story is not the story itself (loser guy makes loser attempt to stitch up Heartland Institute: FAILS) as the way the liberal-left media has tried to spin it. In the Guardian, for example, the ineffable George Monbiot used it as an opportunity to demand that evil, right-wing, probably Koch- and Big-Oil-funded climate denier James Delingpole now reveal the sources of his enormous wealth. And instead of distancing themselves from the embarrassing, heavily compromised, and integrity-free Gleick, the usual greenie suspects have instead rallied round him and either hailed him as a hero or at the very least excused his appalling behavior on the grounds that Evil Climate Deniers are much worse.

Here, for example, is the Union of Concerned Scientists. (Don't be misled by the title: they're an environmental science - i.e. anti-real-science - advocacy group).

Dr. Gleick is among many climate scientists who have been targeted by ideological groups that are eager to attack the messengers of scientific findings. And he is a strong advocate for the important role science plays in society. It’s unfortunate that the bitter, personal attacks on his colleagues and their work contributed to what he called a lapse of his own personal judgment and ethics.

And here - you really couldn't make it up: but then, you don't need to - is the Daily Kos.

Hero scientist, Peter Gleick, a water and climate analyst is the one responsible for exposing the Heartland agenda to spread misinformation and lies and subvert any real action for the climate change crisis.  He did so at considerable risk to his career and personal reputation.

This is bizarre. Beyond bizarre. Can you imagine what would have happened if the roles had been reversed, if it emerged, say, that one of the Climategate emails had been faked by skeptics to make the warmists look even more scuzzy and corrupt and utterly reprehensible than are already (tricky, I would agree)? It would have dominated the MSM for the whole of this year and would probably have run well into next year too.

For a proper sense of perspective I recommend this article by Megan McArdle in the Atlantic:

When skeptics complain that global warming activists are apparently willing to go to any lengths--including lying--to advance their worldview, I'd say one of the movement's top priorities should be not proving them right.  And if one rogue member of the community does something crazy that provides such proof, I'd say it is crucial that the other members of the community say "Oh, how horrible, this is so far beyond the pale that I cannot imagine how this ever could have happened!" and not, "Well, he's apologized and I really think it's pretty crude and opportunistic to make a fuss about something that's so unimportant in the grand scheme of things."  After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you've lost the power to convince them of anything else.

Willis Eschenbach makes a similar point with characteristic wit, verve and gusto at Watts Up With That?

Folks are fed up with climate scientists who lie, cheat, and steal to attack their scientific opponents, and who then walk away without the slightest action being taken by other scientists. As long as there are no repercussions from the scientific community for the kind of things Dr. Gleick has done, mainstream climate scientists will continue to do them. Indeed, Dr. Gleick’s own actions were no doubt greatly encouraged by the fact that you noble scientists were so full of bul … of scientific integrity that you all let the Climategate un-indicted co-conspirators walk away scot-free, without even asking them the important questions, much less getting answers to those major issues.

It's on occasions like this, I must confess, that I wish God had made me a liberal. If I were a liberal I wouldn't need to base my arguments on facts or logic or any of that tedious, effort-demanding stuff. I could lie and cheat and besmirch and demean and appeal to authority as much as I pleased, secure in the knowledge that a) all my bad behavior would be justified by the purity and nobility of my ends and b) all my ideological soulmates would leap to my defense.Can someone remind me, please, what the advantage of being a conservative is? Other than being always right, I mean....

Ricochet, start your engines:

Barbour is aware of the clamor in certain circles for his friend Indiana governor Mitch Daniels to enter the fray. Once again, “It is highly unlikely but it could happen,” he says. “It is certainly more of a possibility than ever in the past. However, in the past, the possibility was zero, so to say the odds are higher than zero is not something that, I think, you’re going to want to bet on.”

But this presumes there's something else that I do want to bet on.

Author, commentator, veteran Presidential advisor, provocateur, and MSNBC survivor Pat Buchanan joins for a vibrant conversation about culture, immigration, religion, and his new book Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive To 2025?  Then, a lively discussion of Rick Santorum's rise in the polls, followed by a Ricochet Podcast watershed moment: Rob declares "I'm for Romney." Call us Mitt, we'll give you his number. 

Music from this week's episode:

• This Is Why We Fight by The Decemberists
• Sympathy For The Devil by The Rolling Stones

Here's the direct link to this week's episode (but use our new audio player below!), however the best way to hear the podcast is to subscribe! Visit our Feedburner page for a number of other subscription options. Or better yet, use Stitcher.

The Ricochet Podcast is proudly sponsored by Encounter Books. This week's featured title is Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy by Ibn Warraq. Available at EncounterBooks.com and Amazon.com.

The Ninth Circuit's official website (paid for by you and me) now hosts a 10-photo slideshow of a pro-same-sex marriage rally held outside the courthouse, under the proud banner: "Gay Marriage Ruling Prompts Rally."  And this is a good use of a .gov domain because... any decision that "prompts" a rally must be in the public interest? 

Could it be a coincidence that the Ninth Circuit staffers assigned the Prop. 8 case to a panel that includes two of the most liberal members of the federal bench? Is it possible that they (brace yourselves) were trying to achieve a particular result? (ht: Ed Whelan at NRO Bench Memos)

Ricochet's own Richard Epstein recently gave a short, fascinating lecture on his seminal book, Simple Rules for a Complex World. 

Professor Epstein discusses six conditions that form the institutional framework for a civilized society: 1) Individual autonomy whereby everyone owns his or her own body ; 2) First possession which grants ownership of property to whomever first claims the property; 3) Contracts which facilitate human cooperation that make all parties of a voluntary transaction better off (and even create positive externalities); 4) Tort rules, which act as punitive measures for anyone who violates the bounds of the first three conditions; 5) Taxation to fund society (here Richard makes the case for a flat tax); and 6) Eminent domain which allows government to acquire the essential resources for infrastructure while providing just compensation to the property holder.  Following his six simple rules, Prof. Epstein addresses the issue of income inequality.

I just returned home from Ash Wednesday matins at my Lutheran congregation. The children of our day school were also in attendance. We read from Jonah about how the people of Ninevah repented, fasted for 40 days, put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. God saw their repentance and how they turned away from evil and showed the city mercy.

During the sermon, our pastor told us that the ashes that are imposed on our foreheads this day are not a mark of piety so much as our mortality. They are a call to repent and, as they are imposed in the shape of a cross, also a hopeful reminder of our salvation.

As I sat there, I was thinking of tonight's debate and what I would do if I were to be asked to do something public on Ash Wednesday, an important Christian day that includes such an ugly, if hopeful, marking on my forehead.

The only thing that ever came close was that the American Enterprise Institute once held its annual formal dinner on Ash Wednesday. I went wearing a ball gown and ashes. It seemed inappropriate but I wasn't sure which part of it was inappropriate.

In any case, I'm curious what you all think. If you were to be asked to do something public on a day when your sinfulness, mortality and faith were on such shocking display, what would you do? Would you wash it off? Would you keep it on? Would you worry about how it comes off?

And while I'm sure that many people are curious whether Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich will show up with ashes, or one or the other, I'm also curious if we'll see any media so arrayed.

At the very least, I wonder if the media thought through whether a debate should be held on this day.

No. There! That was easy. But hey, not so fast. The Atlantic website today posted a piece by a Polish writer about the thoughts and needs of the generation that grew up on the Internet. An excerpt:

Participating in cultural life is not something out of ordinary to us: global culture is the fundamental building block of our identity, more important for defining ourselves than traditions, historical narratives, social status, ancestry, or even the language that we use.

This strikes me as nonsense, but you may disagree. Read the whole piece for context, and what he really wants. (Cheaper downloadable movies. Also, Democracy.)  I'd post my reply here, but it's long, and you can find it here, if you wish, under the pictures of failed Times Square skyscraper plans. 

"Anyone a-settin' here?" he asked.  "No sir, it's waiting on you," I answered.  The counter at a truck stop about an hour west of Chicago was filling up.  I normally sit at a quiet booth and read news, Ricochet, and email, but after a fairly hard day behind the wheel from Kentucky north through Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Chicago, the idea of commiserating with other truckers wasn't so bad.  

"You know how long I been at this?" he asked.  Before I could say no, he answered, "fitty-seb'n years."  I looked up and beheld the quintessential old time trucker.  Deep lines crisscrossed his face like a roadmap, his bright blue eyes set ablaze against skin that looked like dark, tanned leather toughened by years of exposure to the elements.  How many millions of miles of highway had those eyes navigated?  

Most of his teeth were gone so that when he closed his mouth it looked like his chin might bump up against the bottom of his nose.  He had a laugh like Walter Brennan, and a wry sense of humor.  "I'm 75 years old, and I retired twice already."  "Government work?" I asked.  "Oh no," he said.  "I ran my own trucking company for awhile,…had a few trucks. Then I bought some nightclubs too."  "Nightclubs and trucks?" I asked.  "Yep, it was dumb.  That was Mickey Gilley's doin' too.  Never shoulda listened to him.  Sold the trucks and the nightclubs and retired a young man," he continued.   What happened?  "Blew it all away, got back on the road for a few years, then got into cattle," he said.

"Cattle?" asked another voice.  Another trucker sat down to my right and announced that he still owned some cattle.  So I sat between these two cowboys, looking from one to the other as if at a tennis match, enjoying the exchange.  "Say, do you have one o'them 'lectic fences?" asked the old timer.  "Yep," said the other one, adding, "but I don't even have to keep it running now.  The cows won't go near it.  Hell, I even took down part of the fence and just left the posts up and they STILL won't go beyond the posts.  They don't even know the fence ain't there."  

"Well," said Old Timer, "I got one of them 'lectric fences years ago, and you wanna know what happened?"  Pushing his black baseball cap back for effect, he continued, "I had one o'them whatchamacallits,….the big ones on my pants…"  "Belt buckle?" I asked.  "Yeah that's it…looked like a satellite dish but I was young n' stupid.  Well sir, I got a mite too close to that dad burned 'lectric fence, and it arched over to that belt buckle and lit my world all up!"  Even the waitress who had been hovering nearby listening joined the laughter.  

"You was in the military?" he asked while looking over my hat.  "Yes sir," I answered.  "I caught what they call a 'hop' when I came back from Korea," he said,  "but it weren't in no cargo plane.  They put me in a little jet.  The pilot liked flying upside down a lot, ...made me sicker n' a dog."  

I asked him why he was back on the road this time.  "Gets in your blood I suppose," he answered, adding, "my daughter keeps fussing at me and saying I need to sell my motor home because I'm never gonna use it."   Then he asked about the weather up around Appleton, Wisconsin because he has to be there at sunrise tomorrow.  The driver to my right had just come from that area, so he gave him the latest reports while I pulled up the exact mileage and best route on my smartphone for him.  "They got me runnin' those damned 'lectronic logs now.  I cain't figure the [expletive] things out.  Do you know those idiots in the office I work for couldn't even find my truck for two weeks with their little gadgets?"   

Just before he left, I asked him what he missed most about being retired.  "The kids," he answered.  He explained that he used to take groups of children, some of whom were disabled to an extent, and teach them to ride horses.   Then with that priceless hoot of a laugh, he bid us a good evening, paid his bill and went on his way.  

Not once did any of us mention anything in the news.  No politics, no primaries, no twisting or spinning events, no mental gymnastics in support of, or in opposition to a candidate or a cause.  Just three truckers, from different walks of life, with different stories, but with a common purpose, …to deliver the freight and share a few laughs.  It was a hard day,..but a stellar evening.  

The Founding Fathers were all about personal freedom. But did they intend those choices to extend to what we eat, drink, and smoke? That's the question James Delingpole and Paul Rahe took up over the weekend and debate in this podcast. It's a fascinating and friendly conversation amongst two men who have vastly different viewpoints and experiences with the topic at hand. Well worth a listen!

Ricochet members, subscribe here (you'll also find the direct link there). Everyone else, listen in below. 

Our thanks to EJHill for his depiction of the Framers sampling some colonial homegrown. 

If you've read one Paul Krugman column, you've read them all.  Alongside his unabating clarion call for ever more stimulus spending, Krugman decries spending cuts of all sizes, shapes and colors, and despises the idea of a balanced budget.  This clip just about sums up his entire body of work since 2007, and encapsulates the Obama administration's approach to the economy for the duration of his term in office.

Leading the charge to slash spending, on the other hand, Paul Ryan has repeatedly made the case that we face a crushing burden of debt which must be addressed right away lest we hit the point of no return.

And where does Candidate Romney fit into the mix?  Speaking today in Shelby Township, Michigan, Gov. Romney situated himself in the Krugman school of economics.  "If you just cut, if all you're thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you'll slow down the economy," Gov. Romney stated.  "So you have to, at the same time, create pro-growth tax policies."

Though Krugman and Romney agree that spending cuts would worsen the economy, there is, to be sure, a major distinction between the conclusions each man draws.  According to Krugman, spending cuts are bad; therefore, we must increase spending.  Romney has stated that spending cuts, if not coupled with pro-growth tax policies (which he plans to outline this week, incidentally), would be lethal.

But is the underlying assumption here that spending cuts on their own would slow down the economic recovery a correct one? If Krugman, Obama, and Romney are correct on this, then Paul Ryan and his emphasis on spending cuts have been folly. 

Berkeley over the weekend experienced a tragic murder of a 67 year old chemical engineer by a 23 year old youth. Twenty-three year old Daniel DeWitt, apparently mentally unstable and not on antipsychotic medication, was in the front yard of Peter Cukor's home when he and his wife came home last Saturday. Cukor asked DeWitt to leave, went inside and called the police, then went across the street to a fire station to seek help. When Cukor returned, DeWitt beat and killed him with a potted plant.

I happen to live nearby, but don't know the victim or the suspect.  But beyond the tragedy of the death, I cannot help but think that the murder is unfortunately the result of the left-wing that runs riot here in the Bay Area.  First, police did not respond to the first phone call because their resources were devoted to handling an Occupy Oakland protest that attempted to take over — of all things — International House, a Berkeley campus building that houses foreign students and visitors.  Deb Saunders at the SF Chronicle has blogged that the more that Occupy Oakland and similar movements consume the limited policing budgets of cities hit by recession, the less resources are available to fight crime (Oakland, a medium sized city, had 103 murders last year, but has had to spend $3 million a year on the occupy protests).  This terrible murder focuses the mind on the trade-off between protecting the community from crime and coddling anarchist protesters (as the mayor of Oakland has been) in a way that abstract figures do not.

Second, the fact that DeWitt was on the street to begin with might be the result of the de-institutionalization agenda favored by the Left.  In hindsight, it seems clear that DeWitt should never have been on the streets, especially since he was refusing to take his medication.  DeWitt's mother blamed "the system" for not providing enough mental health resources for her son, who apparently was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.  Some argue that Republicans — particularly President Reagan — cut funding for these institutions.  But no matter what resources are available, because of "progressive" court challenges, it is extremely difficult to keep someone in a mental institution against their will, with the result that more unfortunates like DeWitt are released from hospitals and potentially dangerous to innocents around them.