Almost Classical

United States Senate Seal (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey ) "Senator Kaine espousing the radical, radical notion of majority rule. That is now on tape, sir," Chris Hayes said Thursday night (21 Nov 2013). And he couldn't be more wrong. In theory, the GOP could control the Senate with members elected from states representing less than 25 percent of the nation. The math is simple: win lots of small, rural states, and you have a majority in the Senate, while needing only a minority of American voters.  Can Chris Hayes and numerous other pundits (and politicians) be so dense as to not recognize that a minority of voters nationally, but representing majorities in small aging states, could elect a GOP majority in the Senate? And no, this isn't some gerrymandering trick, since Senators are elected state-wide. It's simply a fact that the rural states could dictate policy for the majority… within two or three election cycles. [See the MSNBC clip at: A ...

English: Murray Rothbard in the 90's (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) One of the questions I've been asked is how I can reconcile drawing bits and pieces of my personal views on economics and politics from individuals with disagreements. The answer is simple: we each create a personal philosophy drawing from experiences and those thoughts to which we are exposed. We embrace some ideas and reject others, even the ideas of someone we admire. Some of the ideas and views expressed by thinkers I admire deserve to be rejected — that's true in economics, philosophy, and other disciplines. I lean towards Austrian economic theories, but not without skepticism. A name that comes up when I mention Austrian economics is Murray Rothbard . He's dismissed in the same way some dismiss Ayn Rand . (Rothbard quickly rejected Rand as a "cult" leader.) "Rothbard was a fascist, racist, conservative." I'm paraphrasing, but that's the charge against him. ...