Today I find myself preparing to board plane to resume my final undergraduate year at the University of Warwick in Britain. But what sort of country am I coming back to? Has Britain’s government managed to turn around the country’s economic situation, buoyed by the Olympics, or does Britain remain stuck in the doldrums? That is today’s topic.
Obama at the UN
Barack Obama addressed the United Nations yesterday on the subject of Middle East policy. In the meantime, Mitt Romney continued to criticise the Obama administration on the same issue. Today I would like to discuss the remarks of each, and point out one key flaw at the heart of both men’s policies.
Trouble in China
There’s a lot of fear in the United States and elsewhere with regard to a rising China. Many people are worried about the amount of government debt China possesses, or how so many jobs in industry and manufacturing have moved over there. Increasingly, China and the United States are being compared to one another as if their power outlay were more or less equal–in Pakistan for instance, the numbers are more or less even on the question. However, there are several key reasons why Sinophobia is exaggerated and unnecessary, and they comprise today’s topic.
The Core Goods Model
There is a wide spectrum of disagreement on political and ethical questions. It is often wondered how it is possible for so many people to have so very widely divergent conceptions of what it means to do good politically. In an attempt to answer this and similar questions, I have developed a mathematical model to roughly estimate the ethical rightness or wrongness of a given government policy that illuminates where these differences come from. Today, I would like to share it. It’s called “The Core Goods Model”.
The Culture Fetish
Many people on the left believe that all cultures are of equal value and that, above all other things, a people’s culture should be preserved and prevented from any kind of assimilation or westernisation. Today I would like to challenge this line of thinking–not, as is commonly done, with an appeal to western nationalism and decaying imperialist sentiment, but by accusing this line of thinking of being reactionary and logically unsuitable for the political left.
Benjamin Studebaker 