Lawyers, Guns & Money is a group blog of academics and writers covering politics, law, history, labor, and culture from the left.
HN commenters cite it for Murc's Law, a contrary take on NPR's political coverage by Erik Loomis, and a review of Dune.
Again, what does "cancel culture" mean? Can you define it in a way which isn't politically biased against left-leaning viewpoints from the get-go?
Obama's caution about a "‘circular firing squad’, where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues" seems little different than "Life of Brian's" caution about doctrinaire differences in opposing the Romans - certainly not some caution about a new sort of cancel culture! And how much might come from Obama wanting to deflect criticism about his support for using US military power - just how many drone strikes did he order? - or handling of the Central American refugee crisis at the southern border?
Do you think Chomsky is correct about everything? I don't agree with him about the creator of 'email' either. I certainly disagree with many of his co-signers.
Changing "blacklist" or "master" is not worthwhile to debate. The effort is simple, the benefits small (but non-zero), so do it ... and realize that it's a weak-sauce paper-thin covering over much harder and more intractable problems. It's a "recycle your paper cups while companies kill rivers" sort of issue.
Concerning 'Philosophy professors', if someone makes a philosophical argument that there are only males and females, and nothing else - clearly contrary to scientific evidence and cultural experience - then why don't they deserve censure the same way they would for making the philosophical argument that the Earth is flat?…
> Your source does not seem aware of the history of tax brackets.
"Beginning in 1949, the president was also granted a $50,000 (equivalent to $677,000 in 2025) expense allowance, which was initially tax-free, and did not have to be accounted for."[0] That's 4 years of $677,000 tax-free which I make to be about $2.7M which lines up with "Truman embezzled about two and half million dollars, in 2025 money, from the White House expense account"[1] - "tax-free", "did not have to be accounted for" -> tax brackets are meaningless.
But, you say, "the allowance became taxable later in his presidency"[0], and I reply "Truman never reported it on his tax return"[0], "and also didn’t pay the taxes he owned on the money."[1] which also somewhat scuppers the "history of tax brackets" angle, no?
Further, "In February 1953, Truman signed a book deal for his memoirs, and in a draft will dated December of that year listed land worth $250,000 (equivalent to $3,008,000 in 2025), savings bonds of the same amount, and cash of $150,000 (equivalent to $1,805,000 in 2025)"[0] which I reckon comes to about $8M which, again, lines up with "Truman had a net worth of about $8 million in 2025 dollars when he left the White House"[1].
Further, further, "In January 1959, Truman calculated his net worth as $1,046,788.86 (equivalent to $11,561,000 in 2025)"[0] which, to be fair, is slightly lower than the "$14 million in 2025 dollars when he was successfully shaking his tin cup to Sam Rayburn and John…
If you want a secret tip to exploring a new world, download Papers (http://www.mekentosj.com/papers/), put all the interesting publications you find in one Dropbox folder, and import them. The annotation and note features - as well as the back-up option - makes this a really enjoyable way to publications.
It really is something to read papers that define the way we think, and it's a nice alternative to short blog posts and (pop) articles versus (pop) books.
Here are some papers to get you started:
\* 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=0998565
\* Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=1450006
\* A technique for isolating differences between files: http://ejohn.org/projects/javascript-diff-algorithm/
\* A Future-Adaptable Password Scheme: http://static.usenix.org/events/usenix99/provos.html
Maybe this is cheating, maybe it isn't, but I definitely recommend it.
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If you want to get political, some left-of-centre-leaning writers you can't go wrong with:
1. Matt Taibbi on Wall Street, Rolling Stone (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog)
2. Frank Rich in American politics, now at New York Magazine (https://twitter.com/frankrichny)
3. Glenn Greenwald on civil liberties and foreign policy, in moderation (http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/)
4. Juan Cole on the Middle…
Sure. Looking over the list, I'm reminded why I enjoy reading these people. Even when I disagree with them, it is obvious that they love their field. They have a lot of fun with it. There's a kind of joy found in doing something that you love and have devoted your life to that comes out in their writing. As a result, these writers make actual value judgments. They don't write sterile corporate prose guaranteed to offend no one.
* Lawyers Guns and Money, global conflict, international relations, political science, some legal history: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/
* The Monkey Cage, real political science by political scientists: http://www.themonkeycage.org/
* The Edge of the American West, mostly history professors but some philosophers too, but less academic than Crooked Timber: http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/
* Brad Delong, econ prof at UC Berkley; strong focus on economic history; leans left: http://delong.typepad.com/
* Tyler Cowen, econ prof at GMU, leans right: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/
* Marc Lynch, foreign affairs prof who talks about the middle east; unlike pretty much every middle east expert, he actually speaks Arabic and has some idea about what actual Arabs are talking about: http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/
* Matthew Yglesias, foreign policy, some economics and politics: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/
* Ezra Klein, health care and economic policy: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/
* Felix Salmon, a former bond trader…
> The paradox of tolerance, as it is commonly argued, has to be one of the worst philosophical arguments actually taken seriously. It basically boils down to an argument from fear - We all believe in the importance of
{Sacred Value}, but the Evil Ones are coming to take
{Sacred Value} away! By using our own good natures and
{Sacred Value} against us, they will claim power, and then destroy
{Sacred Value}! The only way to stop them is to destroy
{Sacred Value}, thereby depriving them of the ability to use it against us!
Hmm. If I were trying to present a bad-faith interpretation of the paradox of tolerance, this is how I'd do it. If I were trying to present a good-faith interpretation of the paradox of tolerance, I'd probably replace the last line with something like "The only way to stop them is to physically guard
{Sacred Value}, thereby depriving them of the ability to destroy it!" Tolerance, as a
{Sacred Value}, isn't like a treasury or fortified position, it's an open-air exhibition never intended to be hidden away. The only option, if we're actually serious about having it, is to stand against those who openly and boldly identify themselves as trying to take it away.
>He does not recommend censoring or removing any liberties of the intolerant, unless and until they respond to rational argument by force. Unless they instruct followers to disregard rational argument as itself deceptive. Unless they are inciting actual criminal activity.
I suppose you've never…
> Regarding who gets on the ballot - yes there are a special interests that fund their candidate. We generally get whomever has a larger budget, not who the best candidate might be. Special interests also drive the ballot measures too.
I mean, evidence suggests this is not true because of the small-donor revolution. Like I said above, there were left and right primary upsets this week, and now senior House members will probably be replaced by a socialist high school teacher and a Qanon conspiracy theorist.
Meanwhile in the presidential race, Bernie raised the most with only small donors, two billionaires outspent everyone and failed, and Biden is winning despite hardly fundraising or advertising the whole primary.
Another new case is in Seattle, where Amazon tried to spend their way into controlling the city council to get rid of a tax, but only proved they had no power and everyone hated them: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/07/jumpstart-seattle-how-amazon-won-the-battle-then-lost-the-war
The less popular congresspeople who don't have as many small donors do spend too much time calling for donations, so reform is still needed, but AOC and co really do seem to not have this problem.
> This makes no sense. Just recently (2016) the Dems showed clear bias against Bernie in the leaks. The Chair resigned. The party always has a platform, a brand, an agenda and big budgets.
And in 2020 because Bernie had such a strong youth vote (even though he ran a kind of bad…