In the first part, entitled “Guns, ‘Gun Control,’ and School Massacres (Part The First)” I tried to give the background reasons upon which I take a position on the issue of guns neither conservative nor liberal. Failure to do something substantial toward reducing the probability of the shedding of the innocent blood of our children […]
The tragedy at Newtown must be responded to in the hearts and minds of everyone everywhere. Nowhere is this individual response more significant than in the nation wherein the tragedy occurred, along with so many other similar events — our own beloved USA. Emotion-driven rhetoric erupted right after Newtown, as it did immediately after the […]
In addition to the destruction of the political professional class [Citizens! (I) Call For the Destruction of the Political Professional Class] and the redistribution of wealth [Citizens! (II) The Redistribution of Wealth] we citizens have to come up with a better way to elect our officials, particularly the election of President. We have just witnessed […]
This second installment of the “Citizens” series (see part one) deals with a phrase probably even more misunderstood than the word “liberal” or “socialist” — the phrase “the redistribution of wealth.” My first presentation of this phrase on e-mail to ultra-conservatives brought a hilarious reaction: they thought I was talking about “robbing Peter to pay […]
Once more, for a third time, the same sentence from Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience is partially quoted to help critique the modern American conservative movement — the “it” in the quote, though originally “it” meant the ultra-conservative government in power in the US in the 1840’s: Why does it always… excommunicate Copernicus and Luther…? I […]
This, the second of a three-part expose, uses the same quote from Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience used in the first expose, the case that American conservatism is un-American (See “An Expose of American Conservatism — Part 1). Only this time, different words from that quote are used: Why does it always crucify Christ…? Remember, the […]
This is the first of a three-part critique of the ultra-conservatism so pervasive in the United States since the administration of Ronald Reagan, a conservatism embraced by the Republican Party, a party much different today than it was in the days of Eisenhower. I have found that the spirit of Henry David Thoreau in Civil […]
The tandem of revolutions labeled American and French created, defined, and refined the concept of the citizen. The persons granted the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the American Declaration of Independence, many of whom paid the ultimate price for making those rights reality, were further liberated from the constraints of […]
Even without Obama’s excellent record (see Reason to Vote for Obama — His Record), he still would be a better pick for President than Mitt Romney. Voting for President for me is not a party thing, but a person thing. “Vote for the man!” I always say (“man” here is the generic term for any […]
Whatever your political preferences nowadays, I am going to mess with your mind a bit. What if the object of the Obama-bashers’ ire was turned around 180 degrees, and they were bashing Mitt Romney instead? I hope you find some things interesting and thought-provoking in this exercise of wicked fantasy. If the Obama-bashers were, instead, […]