American leaders and their loyal media pundits love to sit in judgment of other countries’ election, declaring them fair or rigged according to their seemingly meticulous standards. In fact, the real standard is that the regimes “we” like hold free and fair (enough) elections, while the regimes “we” dislike don’t. What about regimes “we” like that hold no elections at all, like Saudi Arabia? They are forgotten whenever the loveliness of democracy is the topic of discussion.
Tag: democracy
Money as a Geopolitical Weapon
People who seek to rule over and control others learned long ago that controlling money and trade is the best way to do it. On a global level, there are open conspiracies among controlling interests that go about doing just that.
How “Representative” is US Democracy?
American politicians love to boast of their nation’s status as the world’s premier “representative democracy,” and to lecture other, presumably less enlightened, countries on the importance of representative political institutions. Going by the numbers (which admittedly don’t tell the whole story), there’s good reason to question whether such preening is justified.
These Parents and Teachers Have Had Enough of Woke Classrooms and Critical Race Theory
More parents are waking up to the “woke” ideology that is seeping into their children’s classrooms and curriculum. Increasingly, they are speaking up and opting out.
Are Organizations Unlibertarian?
A few weeks ago YouTube suggested that I watch a 1988 episode of William F. Buckley’s PBS TV show, “Firing Line,” featuring Ron Paul, who at the time was the Libertarian Party candidate for president. I had to chuckle right at the top when Buckley introduced Rep. Paul by striking an ironic pose: while “libertarians specialize in non-organization…,” Buckley said, “to run for president of the United States, which Dr. Paul is doing on the Libertarian ticket, does require organization, to be sure uncoerced.” (Emphasis added.) Buckley flashed his trademark impish smile while his guest remained silent looking bemused.
Rights are Individual
Anyone saying “corporations have a right to…” or “government has the right to…” doesn’t understand what a right is.
The Great Political Stagnation
The last 25 years have delivered amazing economic and technological progress for humanity. *Political* progress, in contrast, is hard even to detect during this period.
“The Right to V*te”
You have no “right” to gang up to violate rights you don’t care about or that you don’t like.
Moral Relativism and Moral Fanaticism
What exactly is moral fanaticism? Like moral relativism, moral fanaticism is a meta-ethical theory – a theory about moral facts and moral reasoning. Moral relativism says, roughly, that there are no moral facts, and moral “reasoning” is just thinly-veiled emoting. Moral fanaticism, in contrast, affirms that there are moral facts, but pretends that thinly-veiled emoting is ironclad moral reasoning.
The Filibuster: Imperfect, But Better Than Nothing
In its current form, the US Senate delaying tactic called the “filibuster” hangs on a rule requiring 60 votes for “cloture.” Simply put, it takes 51 Senators to pass a bill, but before that it takes the consent of 60 Senators to end debate and actually get to a final majority vote.