11. May 2020
Why does a society comprised of so many reasonable, competent, and responsible people allow itself to have a have leadership whose claims to hierarchy come from mere will and ego-driven marketing skills?
15. March 2017
The populist “revolt” globally crippling liberal democracy; rejecting reason and science in policymaking and governance; and rejecting globalism, tolerance, and diversity is a major regression of the Enlightenment goal of steadily improving society and governance.
27. October 2016
Except for those millions of Americans who are so sickened and disillusioned with the present political system, nearly everyone else is paying literal attention to the 2016 electoral process, voting projections, party alignments, and the antics of Mr. Trump. Many of these people believe that their lives will change for the better if one or the other of the major party candidates wins. Ha! Sadly, all this literalness towards this election and our 18th-Century governance principles and...
09. July 2016
Like Farhad Manjoo in his July 7, 2016 column in the New York Times (ow.ly/prsT100dEeu) Neil deGrasse Tyson laments the state of reason and science in the way Americans govern themselves. Although he doesn't state it as such, we do indeed govern ourselves by 18th-Century principles and institutions. Other nations, especially the European Community, have progressed way beyond what we do in America. However, they, too, have not come close to reaching their potential. What is needed is a new...
09. July 2016
Farhad Manjoo in his July 7, 2016 column in the New York Times (ow.ly/prsT100dEeu) laments the state of reason and science in the way Americans govern themselves. Although he doesn't state it as such, we do indeed govern ourselves by 18th-Century principles and institutions. Other nations, especially the European Community, have progressed way beyond what we do in America. However, they, too, have not come close to reaching their potential. What is needed is a new social ethos and set of public...
19. June 2016
Mark Schmidt of the New America organization and Robert Reich, former United States Sec. of Labor, in an article and letter ( respectively) in the New York Times last week (June 13-19, 2016) discuss the progressive agenda after the Bernie’s Sanders campaign ends. Schmidt argues that Sander’s agenda proposals are out of line with the thinking of new progressives who propose a large set of reform ideas in the form of pushing harder against conservative elements in America which has...
30. May 2016
Eli Watkins of CNN reports in a May 29, 2016 column (http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/27/politics/libertarian-party-convention/index.html) of the Libertarian Party's newest effort to be relevant to American politics in an effective sense. Voting in a candidate for President is NOT going to be successful OR effective. There probably is no high degree of correlation between those people who tend to favor personal "liberty” (as the libertarians do to a greater degree than most people) and private...