Jerome is exactly right about Meetup. If you haven't done it already, go to dean2004.meetup.com and sign up. Also, please don't underestimate the importance of this March 31 deadline. This is one of those weeks where every contribution counts triple, as (1) cash; (2) support; (3) the power of the net. Give 'em Hell Howard, and contribute. We'd like to raise $100,000 over the net in the next week.
Conservatism's shari'a, liberalism's ijtihad
An interesting meta-debate by intellectual conservatives over conservatism's future is playing out. It started with David Frum's Waterloo essay, which led to his political excommunication. Julian Sanchez observed that this represented an epistemic closing of the conservative mind , a thesis that was validated by the retribution visited upon Jim Manzi for daring to suggest that conservatives will achieve more persuasion by using honest, strong arguments instead of weak, emotional ones. All of this has led John Quiggin at Crooked Timber to argue most wisely that as conservatism implodes, liberalism needs to find its own rationale that is more than just "not conservatism". Quiggin has a list of priorities for the liberal movement to address, and closes with the general plea, ...the left has to stand for something more than keeping the existing order afloat with incremental improvements. We need to offer the hope of a better world as an alternative to the angry tribali...
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