Regular readers will know that I’ve offered my share of critiques of the United States in this space over the years. I offer them not because I hate America, but because I love her enough to believe she can be better, and I trust her enough to know that in the long run she will […]
Matt Talbot: Some thoughts on Universal Basic Income
I’ve come across the idea of a “Universal Basic Income” in the last few months, and the idea is interesting enough that I thought I’d devote some column space to it this week. The idea is fairly simple to explain: under most schemes, every adult citizen would receive an income sufficient to provide a basic, […]
Matt Talbot: A bright, flashing warning
Mark Twain supposedly once said, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes,” and I think he was onto something. The United States is not Weimar Germany, but there are some non-trivial similarities that ought not to be dismissed. While Americans are not post-Great War Germans half-starved by years of reparations payments, I suspect a […]
Facing reality, part 2
In last week’s column, I quoted an article in The Imaginative Conservative by my friend, the author John Medaille: “This is not an election about the head, but about the heart, and at the heart of American politics is a burning rage. Rage that our livelihoods have been sacrificed to abstract economic theories; rage that […]
Matt Talbot: Facing Reality, Part 1
In a column last fall, I predicted that Bernie Sanders would get the Democratic Party’s nomination for president this year. Putting aside the completely unforeseeable, it is getting hard to imagine a path to the nomination, given the delegate math and Hilary Clinton’s lead going into the upcoming California primary. She currently has a greater […]
Some Memorial Day thoughts on war
“The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent. Trivia […]
Matt Talbot: A tale from a misspent youth
When I was a kid, I was adventurous to a fault. I was particularly legendary for the bike wrecks I used to get into. While I and my friends lived in the flatlands of Richmond, the El Cerrito Hills were available for more adventurous biking fun about a mile or so east of my neighborhood. […]
Matt Talbot: Some thoughts on the Republican Party
Early 20th century humorist Will Rogers liked to say, “I am a member of no organized political party: I’m a Democrat.” I suspect there are more than a few Republican voters who could make the same remark about the chaos currently consuming their own party. In the wake this week of the Republican primary voters […]
Matt Talbot: Democrats are better economic stewards
BEFORE I GET TO THIS WEEK’S SUBJECT, I’d like to acknowledge a debt of gratitude owed to Marc Ethier, editor of The Herald and the man who offered me the chance to contribute my kvetches and yowlings to this newspaper each week. He’s been a gentle editor and an inspiration to make my writing better. […]
Matt Talbot: History lessons
AT ITS PEAK, ANCIENT ROME ruled an area roughly equivalent to the total land area of the United States. The borders of the Empire stretched from northern Britain to southern Egypt, from modern-day Morocco east to modern-day Iran. For hundreds of years, Roman civilization was an incredibly resilient thing. Its most serious threat was perhaps […]