- Debating Sarah Palin and Feminism
- Drew Carey Visits Second Life
- Looking for Proof the GOP Believes in Small Government
- Event: Reason Goes Hollywood
- New at Reason.org and Reason.com
Debating Sarah Palin and Feminism
At LATimes.com, Reason magazine’s Katherine Mangu-Ward debates author Amanda Marcotte on feminism, women in politics and Sarah Palin. Mangu-Ward writes, “…here’s one answer for how a feminist might wind up supporting a socially conservative candidate: Her feminism isn’t the most important thing about her political views. If a candidate came to me and said, ‘I will cut taxes across the board by 50%, privatize Social Security, dramatically reduce regulations on businesses and push for school choice nationwide,’ I’d vote for her in a heartbeat even if she were a crappy feminist. Palin falls short of this libertarian dream, of course, but you get my point. Maybe claiming myself as part of the feminist sisterhood complicates things too much. Since you, Gloria Steinem and company have more at stake in holding on to the label ‘feminist’ than I do, and you don’t seem to want me in your club, I’ll cheerfully relinquish the title for the duration of our Dust-Up. But if I’m to be drummed out of the sisterhood, then the last, best hope for a socially conservative woman like Palin to win over anyone who calls herself a feminist goes with me.”
Drew Carey Visits Second Life
The newest Reason.tv video examines Second Life, which bills itself as “a 3D digital world imagined and created by its residents.” Reason.tv host Drew Carey says, “Imagine a place based completely on voluntary exchange: a place without coercion; a place where you can be anything you want to be, and create virtually anything you want to create. Sounds utopian, right? Well there’s a whole new world out there folks: a place with unlimited space and no immigration restrictions. In fact, in this new frontier – you can fly.” Carey looks at Second Life’s appeal and how the virtual world has attracted hundreds of thousands of residents since its creation in 2003. The Reason.tv video also inspects the online community’s libertarian leanings. Second Life was once hailed as a libertarian paradise, but over the last few years it has banned gambling, some forms of advertising, banking, and “broadly offensive content.” Carey says if the regulations become too much, “We’ll be able to emigrate to other virtual frontiers.”
» Archive of Reason.tv Drew Carey Videos
Looking for Proof the GOP Believes in Small Government
Reason magazine’s Jacob Sullum writes, “The Republicans (like the Democrats) respect the Constitution only when it’s convenient. You might say that’s old news. Yet while campaigning for president in 1980, Ronald Reagan promised to abolish the Department of Education. So did Bob Dole in 1996. After two terms of a Republican president who proudly charged in the opposite direction, the most John McCain can muster is a promise to ‘identify and eliminate ineffective programs’ – that is, to make unconstitutional activities more efficient. Far from shrinking the federal government, the Republicans want to enlarge it, providing ‘aid to those hurt by the housing crisis,’ solving ‘the energy crisis’ (undeterred by the Carteresque connotations of that phrase), ‘expanding access to higher education,’ seeking ‘a major expansion of support’ for certain kinds of stem cell research, even ‘returning Americans to the moon as a step toward a mission to Mars.’ The platform does not explain how these initiatives qualify as ‘legitimate constitutional functions.’…As an indicator of where McCain would take the country after eight years of big-government conservatism, the 2008 Republican platform is not just disappointing. It’s incoherent.”
» Matt Welch: What’s So Republican About These Economics
Event: Reason Goes Hollywood
Michael Burns, vice chairman of Lionsgate Entertainment and producer of the Atlas Shrugged movie that is in development; David Steinberg, writer of American Pie II and Slackers; Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist; and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) are among the scheduled speakers at “Reason Goes Hollywood” on November 14th and 15th. For more details, please click here.