Best Articles 2021

The Dozen Best of 2021

• (1) "AMERICA'S NEW CLASS SYSTEM," Time, NICHOLAS LEMANN (June 24, 2001).

There are three main paths in the U.S. today: Talent, Lifer and Mandarin. It's possible to think of American politics as an epic power struggle among the three paths; in this year's presidential campaign, Buchanan is the Talent path's candidate, Dole is the Lifer path's, and Clinton is the Mandarin path's.

• (2) "Counting on Counties: How the Creation of Three Thousand Counties Shaped Local Government Across America," William A. Fischel, Dartmouth College (April 2021).

The proliferation of counties that resulted concluded a century ago, and counties settled into three regional roles: near irrelevance in the North, default local governments in the West, and instruments of state control in the South.

• (3) "January 6 Cases Being Treated More Harshly by DOJ," RedState.com, Leslie McAdoo Gordon (June 29, 2021).

sdfsdf

• (4) "America’s Ruling Class: And the Perils of Revolution," Angelo Codevilla, The American Spectator (July 16, 2010):

Never has there been so little diversity within America’s upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America’s upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and “bureaucrat” was a dirty word for all. So was “social engineering.” Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday’s upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.

• (5) Canadian Politics, Justin Trudeau.

sdfsdf

(6) "Federal Protection of 'Oath Keepers' Kingpin Stewart Rhodes Breaks the Entire Capitol 'Insurrection' Lie Wide Open," Revolver.news (June 30, 2021):

The Justice Department argues that Stewart Rhodes both substantially organized and activated an imputed plan to use violence, on 1/6, in real-time, through a series of encrypted Signal messages beginning at 1:38 p.m., as Trump concluded his rally speech on the National Mall, and 62 minutes before Oath Keepers lieutenants allegedly formed a “military stack” to rush the Capitol doors.

These facts alone, as alleged, are more than legally sufficient to secure an indictment of Stewart Rhodes. We will walk you through the mountains of direct and circumstantial evidence built on top of these allegations, but readers must understand this: the only reason Stewart Rhodes is not in jail *right now* is because of a deliberate decision by the Justice Department to protect him.

• (7) "We Should Ask the Modellers to Prove Their Models Can Accurately Predict the Future Before Following Their Advice Again," 24 October 2021, Dr. David Livermore:

Medics, nurses, physios, medical lab scientists, and clinical scientists all must demonstrate competency to be licensed. There is no such regulation for modellers. Yet their advice, adopted by the Government, affects millions whereas a bad doctor can only harm one patient at a time. ... Examine the graph. Then, USING ONLY DATA AVAILABLE UP TO JULY 1891 (i.e., as far into the 1889-94 pandemic as we presently are with COVID) devise a mathematical model (not a qualitative speculation) to account for the peaks up to that date and to predict the size, timing and duration of the two subsequent peaks. Explain why there were no further peaks after 1894. ... In the meantime, let us have no more talk of lockdowns until modellers can prove their skills and competency by showing how the death waves of a previous pandemic could have been predicted accurately. They will find numerous relevant pre-July 1891 articles in the BMJ and the Lancet among other sources.

• (8) Thapar abortion dissent (2021).

sdfsdf

• (9) "Estate Planning: To My Vampire, If Any," by Steven M. Silva (May 25, 2011).

• (10) "Importing Enemies," by Michael Anton.

sdfsdf

• (11) https://townhall.com/columnists/larryoconnor/2021/02/17/rush-limbaugh-simply-the-best-n2584890?1715

sdfsdf

• (12) https://theworthyhouse.com/2017/01/17/book-review-fools-frauds-and-firebrands-thinkers-of-the-new-left-roger-scruton/

sdfsdf

---

Runners Up

• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9281969/DOUGLAS-MURRAY-EU-tearing-apart-right-eyes.html

• Steve Sailer on Michael Lewis on Kahneman and Tversky

• Peter Hitchens review of Helen Andrews' book, Boomers

• "England, Your England," Part I of "The Lion and the Unicorn" by George Orwell.

• "The Real War on Science: The Left has done far more than the Right to set back progress," John Tierney, City Journal (2016).

• "Woke Institutions is Just Civil Rights Law: Why Conservatives Won't (and Can't) Fight for Influence, and What to Do About It," Richard Hanania (2021). On how the radical left captured the corporations.

"Handy Statistical Lexicon" by Andrew Gelman.

• "The Foundationalist Manifesto: The Politics of Future Past," Charles Haywood.

• Charles Haywood review of Frieden's The Feminine Mystique. "It’s not just women, though—only a tiny segment of men have a job that offers real accomplishment, “the life of mind and spirit,” either. The job does not give them fulfillment; it is a means to their real method of fulfillment, providing for and protecting their family."

• "Secrets Of The Great Families," SlateStarCodex (2021).

• https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/

---