Daily Archives: March 2, 2012

New at CJO: AEI president Brooks remembers James Q. Wilson

Written on March 2, 2012 at 4:18 pm, by

After American Enterprise Institute president Arthur C. Brooks enlightened a luncheon audience at the Civitas Institute’s Conservative Leadership Conference, Carolina Journal asked him for thoughts about his “mentor,” political scientist James Q. Wilson. Wilson died today at age 80.

NC Employment numbers put “recovery” into question

Written on March 2, 2012 at 2:41 pm, by

In a recent post, Fergus Hodgson attempted to shed some light on national unemployment numbers by looking not at the unemployment rate, but at the employment-to-population ratio. The unemployment rate, he points out, is often politicized and doesn’t show the full picture. This critique is spot on. The unemployment rate is a measure of thoseContinue Reading

You might be a liberal if …

Written on March 2, 2012 at 1:35 pm, by

… you can tell the difference between saying “abortion is no different from killing babies” and “killing babies is no different from abortion.”

When “no different from” is decidedly different from “no different from”

Written on March 2, 2012 at 1:31 pm, by

With the “right to life” inscribed in the American conscious from its very first declaration of its independence as a nation, the pro-abortionists have always pushed the “viability” argument. The concession has been one to the earliest, most primal and obvious of human ethics: it is wrong to take a life. Feminists and leftists wereContinue Reading

Political scientist James Q. Wilson dead at 80

Written on March 2, 2012 at 12:54 pm, by

One of the nation’s most respected political scientists, James Q. Wilson, has died at age 80. The Locker Room focused on his last essay collection in December 2010. As science exposes more and more of the genetic basis of anti-social and criminal behavior, some people make the case against punishing those genetically predisposed to actContinue Reading

DPI on state education budget trends, 1994 to 2012

Written on March 2, 2012 at 12:18 pm, by

The NC Department of Public Instruction released their annual “Highlights of the North Carolina Public School Budget” document.  It provides very good summaries of public education finance with a particular focus on state and federal revenue. As the chart below indicates, total state education funding, in nominal terms, appears to be on the upswing. (SeeContinue Reading

Will runoff fever hit N.C. this year?

Written on March 2, 2012 at 10:22 am, by

We can expect to see more than a few runoff elections this summer due to the high number of candidates who have filed for congressional and Council of State offices in North Carolina. If a single candidate fails to garner 40 percent or more of the vote in the primary May 8, his or herContinue Reading

Remembering Whittaker Chambers

Written on March 2, 2012 at 9:34 am, by

Whittaker Chambers captured the essence of the intellectual appeal of communism better than anyone in the Cold War era.  His 1954 book, Witness, had a powerful influence on me. The intellectual attraction of a utopian world is still strong in the left today, environmentalism, smart growth, sustainability.  Thomas Sowell traces the 200 year history ofContinue Reading