THE BROKEN WINDOWS THEORY: In

THE BROKEN WINDOWS THEORY: In his commencement speech at Hillsdale College, Edwin J. Feulner, the president of The Heritage Foundation, applies it to public discourse. Too much good stuff here for me to quote an excerpt. Instead, RTWT.

Too bad E.L. Doctorow didn’t apply similar reasoning to his commencement speech this weekend.

UPDATE: For background on the broken windows theory, read this Atlantic article from 1982 by James Q. Wilson, and this transcription of a PBS program hosted by Ben Wattenberg, who explains how Wilson’s theories led to a dramatic increase in the quality of life in Manhattan, and not coincidentally, a drop in its homicide rate, when they were applied by Rudy Giuliani. As Wilson himself said, “The ability to measure the crime rate permits you to test theories, to test competing arguments, to see who is correct.”