The Missing Vision

Maybe it’s me, but the news cycle seems both terrifying and tedious. We’re treated to a steady diet of crises followed by reactions which create new crises. It’s as if we’re in a straitjacket, bouncing off today’s emergency instead of making deliberate choices that might lead to a coherent future.

In a thoughtful New York Times column, Ben Rhodes explains how “short-term compulsions blind us to the forces remaking our lives.” He characterizes Trump as seeking “short-term ‘wins’ at the expense of the future”—for example, ignoring unsustainable national debt, climate change, and other existential perils. But Rhodes says Democrats too are trapped in short-termism—“spend[ing] more time defending what is being lost than imagining what will take its place.”

NewslettersAndrew ParkAugust 13, 2025New York Times, Ben Rhodes, polarization, Saving Can-Do, Book

A Philosophy Problem

America is bogged down in red tape. This is not a secret. Common sense is nowhere, because common sense is illegal.

A brigade of worthy new books is sounding the alarm, and are summarized by David Brooks in his column this week: “We Can Achieve Great Things.” Other public intellectuals calling for a better way of governing are IT expert Jennifer Pahlka, law professor Nicholas Bagley, and political scientist Francis Fukuyama.

What's missing is a discussion of the philosophical flaw underlying the modern state.

NewslettersAndrew ParkFebruary 28, 2025New York Times, David Brooks, Vetocracy

Bret Stephens: To Whom It May Concern

A fourth thing: Establish an Office of Common Sense Reform, working directly from the White House, with a statutory limit of no more than 30 employees to prevent it from becoming yet another permanent and oversize bureaucracy. Appoint either Philip K. Howard, author of “The Death of Common Sense,” or Cass Sunstein, who worked on regulatory reform for Obama, as its first director. Give it the mandate to cut through all the permitting requirements, duplicative regulations and other bureaucratic haggles that keep even modest infrastructure projects from ever being completed on time or on budget.