Sunday 2011-03-06

George Will appeared on econtalk and shared the following William Buckley quote:

Someone (probably an aspiring journalist) "How do you come up with things to write?"
"The world irritates me three times a week."

Speaking of Buckley, it's good to see that the Hoover Institution has clips of The Firing Line online nowadays. Back in the 90's, I emailed them asking when episodes would be available, and I'm glad they've found it worthwhile, and hope they continue to.

Returning to Will, he indicts the expansion of the federal government's powers as defeating the Madisonian ideal of a Republic with republican remedies for republican maladies. 1 However, Roberts (his interviewer) did not ask whether Will thought the constitution as drafted worked.

Earlier in the show, Will said:

People have strangely bifurcated minds, and they're reluctant to see the bad consequences of their good intentions.
Was the Constution improperly framed and we have merely altered it to suit our self-interests, or is it proper and we have fallen short of our Founders' expectations?