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Harrison Searles

Fairfax, Virginia.

Master's student at George Mason University in economics, MA Fellow at the Mercatus Center, and alumnus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst; avid scribbler.

Recent Activity

Thoughts on the Minimum Wage

In The New York Times, Arindrajit Dube, a celebrated expert on the economics of the minimum wage, has commentated on the recent study from the University of Washington on the effects of Seattle’s increased minimum wage. In short, Mr. Dube argues that the study’s conclusion that there were big job... Continue reading

Posted Jul 27, 2017 at Right Reason

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Robert Citino on Dunkirk

Robert M. Citino, one of the foremost German-military historians today, has an interview, "Why the Germans Blew It at Dunkirk,” at Bloombery View about Dunkirk, both the actual event and Christopher Nolan’s movie about said event. On the topic of the infamous Halt-Order, Mr. Citino says: Remember, Hitler's May 24... Continue reading

Posted Jul 26, 2017 at Right Reason

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Our Lawless Police

Yesterday, Officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted of all charges, including second-degree manslaughter, in the shooting of Philando Castile. Mark Berman of The Washington Post reports: The Minnesota police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop was acquitted on all charges by a jury Friday, a decision that... Continue reading

Posted Jun 17, 2017 at Right Reason

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Open Immigration and Firearms: Equivalent Rights?

Will Wilkinson poses the question: Let me hazard a response: The difference between the right of owning a weapon and migrating to another society is that the latter is based on the natural impetus for self-preservation while the latter involves wanting to enter into a society that may have grown... Continue reading

Posted Jun 5, 2017 at Right Reason

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Art on Saturday

I had the pleasure of visiting the National Gallery of Art earlier this evening. As is to be expected, I was only able to make my way through a small fraction of the exhibits in the hour or so that I was there. The main exhibit I looked at was... Continue reading

Posted Jun 3, 2017 at Right Reason

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Pope Francis vs Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia

A fascinating new article has been published in Foreign Affairs by Victor Gaetan, titled "Why Trump and Francis Diverge on Saudi Arabia." In that article, Mr. Gaetan discusses the tension between how Pope Francis and President Donald Trump have entirely different views about the Wahhabist absolute monarchy that is Saudi... Continue reading

Posted Jun 2, 2017 at Right Reason

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Comparing Rome and China: The Influences of island-geography

Earlier this week, I had an email on Tyler Cowen's post on the question of why Chinese civilization has been so successful in establishing a centralized hegemony over a population around the same size featured on Marginal Revolution. In that post, Rome vs. China, I look at how geographic factors,... Continue reading

Posted May 19, 2017 at Right Reason

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Remarks On France's Totalitarian Secularism

From The Economist's "Muslim attire: The state and the veil": France is different. The roots of French political secularism, known as laïcité, go back to the revolution of 1789 and to an anti-clerical campaign in the early 20th century. By 1904 some 10,000 religious schools had been shut; thousands of... Continue reading

Posted May 12, 2017 at Right Reason

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Scène de Juillet 1830

During the evenings, I have been listening to Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast, which I can wholeheartedly recommend. In particular, I've been repeatedly listening to the most recent cycle, on France's July Revolution. The podcast has brought to mind one of my favorite paintings, Léon Cogniet's Scène de Juillet 1830. With... Continue reading

Posted May 8, 2017 at Right Reason

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Some More Thoughts on Casuistry

Human beings free will. Although it is certainly marred by concupiscence and circumstances, free will provides the human species with the ability to choose their actions and to make judgments about what ends in life are worthwhile. Perhaps a better word than ‘free will’ might be autonomy. ‘Autonomy’ derives from... Continue reading

Posted May 7, 2017 at Right Reason

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Some Thoughts About Casuistry and Healthcare Policy

One of the fundamental problems with talk about healthcare in politics today is casuistic: Commentators start with the hard cases and try to craft policy based on hard cases that pull at the heartstrings, rather than straightening out the easy cases of daily life first. Americans should be more concerned,... Continue reading

Posted May 6, 2017 at Right Reason

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David Brooks writes about Western civilization

Over at The New York Times, David Brooks has penned an article titled, "The Crisis of Western civilization," about the rise of illiberal threats to Western civilization in the past couple of years. Although Mr. Brooks wisely begins by noting that the West is successful because of its ideas and... Continue reading

Posted Apr 28, 2017 at Right Reason

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Not a half-year out of his presidency, Barack Obama is already filing to the trough laid out by corrupt system of crony capitalism. This September, the former president will be paid $400,000 to address Cantor Fitzgerald’s healthcare conference. Matthew Yglesias reacts over at Vox: That's so much cash, for so... Continue reading

Posted Apr 26, 2017 at Right Reason

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Comparative Advantage at 200

Under a system of perfectly free commerce, each country naturally devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most beneficial to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the with the universal good of the whole. By stimulating industry, by rewarding ingenuity, and by using... Continue reading

Posted Apr 19, 2017 at Right Reason

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Propagandacast 1413: Precipice of steel

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Posted Apr 18, 2017 at Right Reason

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In Review: Episode VIII Teaser Trailer

Am I the only person to think that the line "it's time for the Jedi to end" is extremely insulting to the original trilogy? The original trilogy ended with The Return of the Jedi, and the destruction of the Sith order for good. Why is this trilogy so willing to... Continue reading

Posted Apr 17, 2017 at Right Reason

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Hunter S. Thompson and The Great Gatsby

Today is the 92nd anniversary of the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. One of the lesser known factoids about The Great Gatsby is Hunter S. Thompson's inspiration from the work and this is covered in an article about him from The New Yorker, "Believer": There is a... Continue reading

Posted Apr 10, 2017 at Right Reason

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The Blood of Martyrs Irrigates the Egyptian Soil

St. Mark's Cathedral in Alexandria, outside of which a bomb exploded. 2017 Holy Week is a Holy Week of Christian unity. More often than not, the Western and Eastern churches celebrate Easter on different dates and so their respective Holy Weeks do not coincide. It is not the case in... Continue reading

Posted Apr 10, 2017 at Right Reason

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National Geographic on Early Human Cannibalism

National Geographic has a fascinating, if not macabre, article about cannibalism in human evolution. The article starts with a discussion of a recent findings about the nutritional value of a human carcass and then questions why, given those findings, cannibalism would ever be as endemic as it seems to have... Continue reading

Posted Apr 8, 2017 at Right Reason

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The Centenary of American Intervention in WW1

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. -Woodrow Wilson, Address to Congress on April 2nd Yesterday, April 6th, marked the centenary of the American intervention in the First World War. After three years of armed neutrality, the... Continue reading

Posted Apr 7, 2017 at Right Reason

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Punitive Attacks in Syria

Vox reports: The United States has just intentionally bombed a Syrian regime target for the first time since the country’s civil war began in 2011. So far, it has been a limited cruise missile strike targeting one Syrian airbase, causing an as-yet-unknown number of casualties. "Dozens of Tomahawks were launched... Continue reading

Posted Apr 6, 2017 at Right Reason

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A Rant on Deceptive Market-Failure Arguments

Over at the Niskanen Center, Samuel Hammond has written one of the worst articles I’ve ever read on mutual-aid societies and the welfare state. So let’s begin my rant: The conventional libertarian argument has always been a bit hand-wavey, pointing to eras in history where, yes, government was smaller and... Continue reading

Posted Apr 3, 2017 at Right Reason

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Art on a Languid Evening

I've been feeling a bit languid this evening. One of the things that I've been doing instead of the editing that I should have been doing is looking at pieces of art on Wikipedia. It is fitting that today is the anniversary of Vincent van Gough's birth. However, despite the... Continue reading

Posted Mar 30, 2017 at Right Reason

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An Argument For More Boxing

Why more people should embrace boxing, from The Economist's 1843: Boxing and canoeing are more energy-sapping, though less accessible. According to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, 48m Americans pulled on their running shoes in 2015 (the country has a similar proportion of joggers to Australia, with Britain trailing). By... Continue reading

Posted Mar 28, 2017 at Right Reason

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What Is Liberalism's Triumph?

This sociability… or this Care of maintaining Society in a Manner conformable to the Light of human reason Understanding, is the Fountain of Right, properly so called; to which belongs the Abstaining from that which is another’s… -Hugo Grotius, On the Rights of War and Peace The Economist has recently... Continue reading

Posted Mar 27, 2017 at Right Reason

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