Kicking the Can Down the Road, Cementing Cans
When citizens want one thing and lobbyists want another, often we end up kicking the can down the road; we should be cementing cans after they’re kicked.
Constitutional Fundamentalism
Liberal and Conservative, Left and Right
In popular usage, ‘left’ and ‘right’ have come to mean the same thing as ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative,’ respectively. This is a critical mistake.
Socialist Governments vs Capitalist Markets
Socialist governments vs capitalist markets, left vs right. These obscure the point: the only true American ideology should be pragmatism.
Dead, Dead, Dead: The Thanatocracy
Constitutional fundamentalists, like other fundamentalists, yield thought and free will in worship and submission to the dead authority of the thanatocracy, a system that is dead, dead, dead.
Alienable Rights
Guarantees are human constructs, not divine. If we do not provide and protect our beliefs, they are simply alienable rights.
Bernie, Populist Financing, and the 1st Branch of Government
Senator Bernie Sanders is a phenomenon. Actually two phenomena. First, there are the planks in his platform which, despite much outcry to the contrary, are hardly new.
And then there is the populist financing he has attracted…
Scientific Fundamentalism
It is interesting that scientists rail against Christian fundamentalists, because so many scientists are equally fundamentalist about their own disciplines. Let us begin with examples, data; let us use science against the scientist. I have previously mentioned Bernard Barber’s paper, ‘Resistance by Scientists to Scientific Discovery‘, and Thomas Kuhn’s slender but essential – and largely … [Read more…]
Which Conservatives?
South Louisiana is famous for a number of things, the food, the festivals, the language, the joie de vivre. But most all, it is the music that has carried the culture into the international spotlight. It wasn’t always that way. You can buy t-shirts that read ‘Chank-a-Chank’, which is one of those pejorative-cum-pride things. Chank-a-chank … [Read more…]
The New US Founders
In one of the recent presidential debates, a panelist asked Ben Carson what he would do about ‘grey’ drugs, life-saving medicines that have recently seen astronomical price inflation. My ears perked up. For some time I have wondered about how we might resolve the tension, and where the balance point lies, between the considerations of … [Read more…]