A Socio-Political Blog
Our community lost one of its greatest citizens. Known by many, but not by enough. Loved by all who knew him. Steve Mager was never the mayor, nor on city council. He never led Main Street, or chaired a major organization. He wasn’t elected or appointed to anything that I know of. Yet he…
The father of modern philosophy, Rene Descartes (“I think, therefore, I am”) believed in “Innatism”; he believed the human mind is born already containing certain knowledge, specifically the difference between right and wrong, and at our core was an innate knowledge of God. His theory was countered by the Empiricists, John Locke, in particular, who…
#MeToo started as a public solidarity movement to expose the widespread problem of sexual assault and harassment, and to provide support to people who have experienced it. I applauded that, because it’s (now, quite obviously) a serious problem. As both an assault survivor, and a longtime advocate for other survivors, I was very hopeful about…
“Maybe there’s a God above, but all I’ve ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya. It’s not a cry you can hear at night, it’s not somebody who has seen the light, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah!” Leonard Cohen bemoaned the bitterness of love. Or at least…
The wall debate is a perfect illustration of different rhetorical patterns between ideological viewpoints. Wall supporters are now comparing ALL walls in order to connect the logic of good walls to a Mexican wall : “Heaven has a wall,” “People in gated communities have a wall,” “Parking garages have walls!,” “Obama has a wall!” (he…
There are two things I hear consistently from people who oppose social spending: “It’s MY money,” and, “I don’t want my hard earned money being spent on people who want to live off handouts!” Their assumption often seems to be that the poor are that way because they haven’t been chastised enough to stop being…
When Bill Clinton was being excoriated by the right for weak morals, the term “Family Values” was coined. It may have been around already, but that is when Republicans took it to the People’s Bank. The internet existed, but social media was still in its infancy and the brushfire of negativity was experienced through traditional…
This exchange sums up the Kavanaugh argument for me. I was stopped and was asked: “How come Obama gets a pass for smoking pot in college and Kavanaugh is made out to be so bad for doing things that we all might have done?” Me: “What we all might have done? I never got pass-out…
This article from The Atlantic should be read by everyone: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/conservative-women-kavanaugh-ford/572023/ It doesn’t draw a conclusion, but it brings to light a very real conundrum regarding methods and goals and the partisan divides. The word “hypocritical” is being used by both sides in the Kavanaugh debate. Calling this “extreme partisan politics” has traction on both…
Ok. Let’s rid the country of liberals. I read a conservative post that said that “liberalism is a disease.” Others chimed in and made it clear that liberals are “destroying America,” that they are “stupid” and “don’t live in reality.” So. Let’s deport them. That seems like an up and running directive these days for…