A Mini-Fest of Links

It's time to disgorge some of the links that I've been hoarding.

First up is Arnold Kling's "Religion, Government, and Civil Society." I had missed it because it was published in February of this year, when I was neither blogging nor reading blogs. Kling compresses much wisdom into a relatively short essay. (For my views on the importance of civil society -- as opposed to statism -- read "On Liberty" in the sidebar and go here.)

Relatedly, here is Tyler Cowen's post about philanthropy. (I hereby apologize for having thought bad thoughts about Cowen.)

Next is a piece (reproduced here) by Douglas Kmiec about the (now-stayed) ruling by an Iowa judge, in which he struck down Iowa's defense-of-marriage act. That is to say, the judge ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. (My views on the subject are in this post, among others.)

"Crunchy cons" -- love 'em or hate 'em -- always stir the pot. Here are two posts by Mr. Crunchy Con himself, Rod Dreher. It seems, on the surface, that Dreher is a "civil societarian," as Arnold Kling defines it. But do not be deceived by the reasonable tone of Dreher's posts (linked above). Dreher is, in fact, a pseudo-civil-societarian with a statist agenda. For more on that, go back and read this post (toward the bottom) and this one.

I wrote recently about "The Slippery Slope of Constitutional Revisionism." The U.S. may not have traveled as far down the slope toward vicious statism as has the U.K. But it could do so, quite easily. Let this be a warning to you.