Contrary to the prevailing wisdom of many scholars, Mearsheimer (2014) argues that the Ukraine calamity is not merely the fault of Russian aggression, but a complex interaction of democracy building (i.e. liberal hegemony), NATO enlargement into Eastern Europe, and the expansion of the EU. The main point in all this? Russia should be seen as a defensive force against globalization, not an aggressive, imperialist force

https://www.natur.cuni.cz/geografie/socialni-geografie-a-regionalni-rozvoj/studium/doktorske-studium/kolokvium/kolokvium-2013-2014-materialy/ukrajina-a-rusko-mearsheimer-souleimanov.pdf

When social scientists confirmed the findings of the Reagan administration on the number of homeless people, social activists just charged the scientists with bias and the press ignored the findings.
Activists were literally just guessing the number of homeless people.The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless used guesstimates to inflate the number of homeless people. The true number was about 10 times smaller.

Conservative and scientific magazines were much more likely to use the correct estimates when they were published.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9906.1996.tb00389.x

Whenever I walk into a Burger King in New York City

The system fails us again. God Bless Justice Thomas.

Whenever some free-market libertarian says something is “basic economics” they mean that they read it from Economics in One Lesson (which wasn’t written by an economist) and maybe a Ron Paul video

Just open an economics textbook. It’ll talk about rent-seeking, partial and general equilibrium, nominal rigidity, et al. That’s not even to say those theories are totally applicable to the real world, but they’re much different from any Sowell or Friedman book you read.

Although the widely praised earned income tax credit has a host of benefits for its recipients, Klevin (2019) finds that it doesn’t actually promote work, which is a primary goal of the tax credit. However, this is contrary to many studies finding that it does promote work, so the question is far from settled.

https://www.henrikkleven.com/uploads/3/7/3/1/37310663/kleven_eitc_sep2019.pdf

Philosophy hot take: the reason secular societies fail is their view of suffering. Suffering is seen as an inherent evil. Therefore, these societies attempt to limit suffering to the extreme. The issue here is that suffering in moderation leads to the building up of strength and immunity. This cannot occur in a society with a very limited amount of suffering. In Christianity, suffering can be seen a virtuous under certain conditions. Christ’s suffering was the most amazing occurrence in the history of the world. So even if you aren’t Christian, there is still a reason to promote Christian values in society in order to maintain the benefit of suffering. The only school of secular thought that values suffering is Social Darwinism, which is condemned by the vast majority of people, so Christianity is the easiest and most efficient route towards this end.

The irony of liberals saying that I’m voting against my “own self-interests” is that my “self-interests” are not getting killed by feds and having all my social media accounts shut down

They were just born that way!

NEW - There's been a huge explosion in the number of Americans identifying as LGBT a Gallup survey shows.

Close to 1 out of every 5 Gen Z so identifies (17%). That's more than a 4-fold increase from Gen X (4%).

But almost all of the increase comes from those identifying as bi or trans, not gay or lesbian. @disclosetv @disclosetv_chat

Fryer (2009) analyses the supposed phenomenon of “acting white,” when black students are chastised by black classmates for having a high level of academic achievement. He finds significant evidence for this phenomenon, as black students with GPA’s above 90% and who go to multiracial schools face higher levels of peer pressure and isolation from their black classmates, which can cause them to regress towards lower test scores. Although it doesn’t primarily explain the black-white test score gap, Fryer suggests that cultural differences may possibly be playing a role in it.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/an_empirical_analysis_of_acting_white.pdf

BREAKING

There’s a reason the original Oreo cookie tastes better than all the weird looking new flavors