Comments (1)

By Gregory Taggart, November 30, 2014 8:11 pm

The Federalist Society regularly hosts some very interesting and fairly balanced panel discussions of topics related to the Society’s mission “to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law.” This past September, the Society put on a panel titled “Passion and Prudence in the Political Process: The Debate Over Federal Civil Rights Policy.”

The panel is interesting for a number of reasons, but I post about it largely because it illustrates so well the problem of “damned statistics.” Not being a statistician myself, I can only express my frustration at the way some people toss about numbers as if the act itself were sufficient to prove their point. For what it’s worth, I think Gail Heriot and Diana Furchtgott-Roth win this encounter hands down, but then, I agree with their side of the issue.

What do you think?

Cross posted at GregoryTaggart.com

Comments (0)

By Gregory Taggart, March 29, 2011 4:54 pm

So what’s the difference between slavery in the pre-Civil War U.S. and a foreign policy that would prop up a dictator like Mubarak or the Shaw or Marcos because he was friendly to U.S. interests in the region, even though he abused the people of his country? To my mind, in both cases innocent people were being severely abused, even killed. In both cases, people in power ignored the abuse because it benefited their interests. In both cases, the people in power had the resources to stop the abuse.