I teach the kids a lot about the concept of governmental legitimacy. Basically speaking, if a people governed believe that the government has the right to lay down laws, for whatever justification, then they are more easily governed. The belief of the governed is what matters most, though; for thousands of years hereditary [...]
Some good things did come from Harvard, and one is an idea that you’ll likely see at a Yale tournament near you in the fall. Policy Mike was staying with me for the weekend so he could judge the Harvard policy tournament, and at one point he mentioned how judging speech left him feeling [...]
So the snowstorm cancelled the Mardi Gras tournament Saturday, which resulted in a found day; an unexpected free day that I haven’t scheduled down to the hour. That was very nice, since it meant that I could spend it any way I wished, without a sense of waste or failure.
So I did. I watched a [...]