Regulation
A long, strange trip for NC distillers to reach NC consumers
Imagine being a North Carolina distillery wanting to get your product to North Carolina consumers. Here's the system you face. Would you not call this byzantine?
William Safire
American journalist and presidential speechwriter (1929–2009)
Liberty
Saudi threats as empty as their treasury?
Randall Forsyth of Barron’s offers some intriguing information about Saudi Arabia’s recent financial threats. “YAMANI OR YA LIFE.” That was the priceless pun offered by William Safire, the New York…
Liberty
Cool, dispassionate discourse versus heated argument
Members of the Obama administration might like this quote: Persuasion through speeches and books is too often discarded for disruptive demonstrations aimed at bludgeoning the unconvinced into action. … Subtlety…
Liberty
The N.C. connection to ‘Dixiecrat’
The intermittent perusal of Safire’s Political Dictionary led to this discovery today: Coinage of Dixiecrat was attributed to William Weismer, telegraph editor of the Charlotte (N.C.) News, who had difficulty…
Liberty
Locke and the Commies
Of all political terms associated with John Locke, you might not expect him to be linked to “consciousness-raising.” Yet William Safire’s Political Dictionary includes this reference in the second paragraph…
Liberty
John Edwards’ greatest contribution to politics?
Perhaps it was his effective demonstration of the term “class warfare.” Edwards was so effective at pitting class against class that William Safire’s Political Dictionary starts its definition of “class…
Liberty
Newer isn’t always better
It’s rare to find a negative connotation attached to the word “innovation,” so it was interesting to read this section from William Safire’s Political Dictionary entry on “checks and balances”:…
Liberty
The meaning of ‘campaign’
Since we’re in the midst of many heated election campaigns, I thought you might like to read a portion of William Safire’s definition of “campaign” in Safire’s Political Dictionary: Campaign…
Liberty
Why am I not surprised …
… that a North Carolina politician was responsible for coining a term that means “pretentious nonsense” or “claptrap”? Safire’s Political Dictionary uses those words to help define “bunk.” Here’s how…
Liberty
A blast from the political past
The following quote would probably fit well with the current campaign rhetoric: “And that will be the great objective of this Administration, at the outset, to bring the American people…
Liberty
The history of ‘boondoggle’
William Safire’s Political Dictionary tells us that a boondoggle is “any project on which government funds are wasted through inefficiency or political favoritism.” Safire also explains that the word once…
Liberty
The origin of ‘backlash’
Longtime observers of the John Locke Foundation know that syndicated political columnist Robert Novak has made many appearances in North Carolina to speak for Locke Foundation audiences. He?s also appeared…