Is it really too much to ask of US Representatives and US Senators that they know what they’re voting on before they vote? Apparently so, and it’s easy to see why.
Tag: voting
How Our Culture Disempowers Teens
Teenagers are extraordinarily capable. Louis Braille invented his language for the blind when he was 15. Mary Shelley, daughter of libertarian feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote Frankenstein when she was 18. As a young teen, Anne Frank documented her life of hiding from the Nazis during World War II. Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Prize at 17.
American Politicians Use Jews as Pawns to Excuse Their Meddling in Israeli Elections
What are the purposes of the BDS movement? To pressure the government of Israel to meet “its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully compl[y] with the precepts of international law by: 1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; 2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”
Peckerwood Populism is About Political Strategy, Not Personal Belief
Is Trump a racist? A xenophobe? A misogynist? His public history, going back at least to the early 1970s, offers evidence for all three accusations. Some people find that evidence compelling, some don’t. But to focus on Trump’s personal beliefs in any of those areas is to miss the point. He’s not an individual actor living out his life in private. He’s a public actor, leading a major political party, occupying the highest political office America has to offer, and campaigning for re-election to that office.
Power, Not Policy, Drives American Politics
According to the late political philosopher Anthony de Jasay, the modern state is a “redistributive drudge …. If its ends are such that they can be attained by devoting its subjects’ resources to its own purposes, its rational course is to maximize its discretionary power over these resources. In the ungrateful role of drudge, however, it uses all its power to stay in power, and has no discretionary power left over.” How much discretionary power does the federal government exercise over your resources?
Locked Up: How the Modern Prison-Industrial Complex Puts So Many Americans in Jail
For American society as a whole, the prison-industrial complex has created a perverse incentive structure. Bad laws drive out respect for good laws because there are just so many laws (not to mention rules, regulations, and other prohibitions used by federal prosecutors to pin crimes on just about anyone). How did we get here?
An Anarchist Postive Program
Alright, enough with all the negativity, and time to get positive. Now, I know very well that we don’t want this, and we don’t want that. This is fundamentally corrupt and needs to be destroyed, and that is entirely oppressive and needs to be abolished. This is completely fucked-up and needs to be attacked, and that thing over there… well, let’s not even talk about that!
Marianne Williamson is Right About American Elections
Yes, “separation of church and state” is preferable to theocracy, but our two “major” parties, the Democrats and Republicans, exemplify an iron grip on rule by party establishments that even Iran can’t match.
Opposition Research: It’s Not Trump’s Fault That Politics is a “Dirty” Game
In a June 12 interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, President Donald Trump freely admitted that he would listen to foreigners offering him “dirt” on his political opponents: “I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening …. Somebody comes up and says, ‘hey, I have information on your opponent,’ do you call the FBI?”
Life on the Tax Farm
We produce so that others may consume. We are given the illusion of influence and of choice. We are told that we matter. We are told we can change things. It’s all a lie, a fallacy, a grand delusion designed to keep the slaves quiet and contented, believing their servitude to be a choice.