Politics
The Bipartisan Demand for Buying American
Part of the reason I find it difficult to take our two party system seriously is that Americans from both parties tend to hold very similar beliefs — often on precisely those issues over which I wish there were more disagreement. As a case in point, consider today’s Pew report on attitudes towards “buying American”: [...]
The Fairness Doctrine Dies
Bless you, American Senate, for knocking down The Fairness Doctrine. You’ve done a good deed today. Attempts to make society just based on naive numerical equality procedures strike me as uniformly insipid.
Fair Copyright in Research Works Act
Given that we know that the Democrats are the party of the people, it must come as a surprise that Democratic Representative John Conyers has re-introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, which will remove the legal requirement that all research performed by federal agencies be published in journals providing open access to the [...]
Change You Can Download
I have to admit it: I prefer change I can download to change I can believe in.
Democrats and Republicans
A friend just referenced a recent New York Times op-ed entitled, Herbert Hoover Lives. I agree with very little of the content of the op-ed, but thought it was worth reading if only because reading it made clear to me why I have so little patience for either of our two major American political parties: [...]
Crimes without Prosecution
4. Back to politics. One can easily imagine the defense strategy, which will start by calling to the stand various Democratic senators and representatives who had been informed of the interrogation tactics and did not publicly object to them at the time. The testimony would surely be entertaining, as the politicians would be put in [...]
A Publian Thought
I find it distressing that people are much more interested in talking about Obama’s inauguration than in discussing the merits and demerits of his proposed policies.
F*CK!
From the state that brought you U.S. Americans who couldn’t afford maps: a move to outlaw profanity. Thank you, South Carolina, for proving that the First Amendment will always need someone to defend it against its enemies.
Democracy in Action
The Pew Research Center reported yesterday that the voters of 29 states have already approved bans on same-sex marriage. For me, this observation highlights the absurdity of the naïve apotheosis of populism and democratic institutions that constitutes a core element of the contemporary Western zeitgeist. We tend to take for granted that democracy is something [...]
Obama is Not Fond of the Thirteenth Amendment
Evidently, Barack Obama still intends to impose involuntary servitude upon our nation’s youth. To quote Obama’s new website, Change.gov: The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to [...]