It may not seem so at times, but the USA still commands more of global mindshare than any other nation. What we say and do influences people of all nations in ways meritorious, deleterious, inspirational and inflammatory. The world hangs on every vote in every community in every state of our nation for news of… Read More »
We have, judging by their recent decisions, the most incapable Supreme Court of several generations. We have a Congress gridlocked by nothing more than a half baked political idea from Newt Gingrich that preventing Obama from doing anything at all would be good for the GOP. We have an intellectual for a President who’s idea… Read More »
Shouting fire in a crowded theater that you know is not on fire is not free speech. If you shout fire, liability attaches if there is an intent to do harm, or the act causes harm even if unintended. Government could ban the act of shouting fire as an exception to the First Amendment but… Read More »
At the core of conservative dogma about government is that if the national debt gets too big it will soak up all the capital in the world and thus drive up interest rates to some apocalyptic level. Catastrophically high interest rates will kill economic growth and multiply the debt burden through higher interest and falling… Read More »
Conservative, by definition, is oppositional to change, moderate, cautious. A person can be conservative. The current political incarnation that we now call conservative is something other than a collection of people who exhibit the characteristics of a conservative person. In politics, conservatism as defined by Edmund Burke, the father of conservatism, is a living contradiction.… Read More »
We went to war with Germany, Italy and Japan on December 7, 1941 to defeat fascism. Most people would define fascism as a rigid social order that subjugates people to the dictates of an authoritarian government. That may be true in historical terms, but fascism is not that at all.
The twentieth century topped the previous two centuries in economic growth. These last three centuries produced virtually all the per capita economic growth the world has ever seen. That growth, driven by the dual liberations of democracy and innovation, is evident in and is a result of the spectacular betterment of the standards of living… Read More »
A shadow box sits on my mantle. In it are the effects of my great uncle Homer who was killed in WW I serving as a U.S. volunteer in the Canadian forces deployment to Europe. Thereafter my family were pacifists. Pacifism, however, does not seem to shield you from danger anywhere on the scale from… Read More »
The only thing about the Second Amendment that is certain is that it was intended to assure the survival of the fledgling nation that drafted it. That nation is now a superpower with no real need of a standing militia to support it’s military might, but the possibility that it might not always be a… Read More »
More than anything, Obama’s inaugural address reminds us that human progress is under perennial attack. For the POTUS to consider it necessary to recite the history of American progressive thought that has led the creation of the world’s most admired, most envied, and most hated nation spells out that fact. It was an acknowledgement that… Read More »