Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Questions of Legitimacy
I found Power, Authority, Legitimacy at Electric Politics to be a very interesting article. It talks about these three important elements to effectively government and how they interact with each other. The focus is on legitimacy, but George Kenney also explains how power and authority can be in place without bestowing any legitimacy. As I…
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Personal Independence
I have been wanting to talk about the meaning of personal or individual independence for a while, especially in light of recent discussions – that was even before I got this comment from Charles that captured the debate in a nutshell: If you are a collection of random individuals each committed to making your own…
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The Health Care Issue as a Catalyst for Debate
photo credit: the queen of subtle When I saw that Jim DeMint had written an article titled Our Health Care Mess Is a Symptom of a Much Bigger Problem my interest was piqued partly because I like DeMint as a senator and partly because I had just been saying the same thing in a series…
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The Goal of My Political Activity
Last month, in response to a comment that: more often than not it seems the only choice we have in our candidates is a choice between horrible and horrible. I wrote back saying: That means that you need to get in earlier in the process – before there are only two candidates left – because…
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Medical Cultures
[quote]I have called David Goldhill’s How American Health Care Killed My Father a must-read for anyone who wants to speak up in the health care debate. The New Yorker also has a must-read article on the issue called The Cost Conundrum. In that article we are introduced to the town of McAllen, Texas where Medicare…
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Too Rich to Go Bankrupt
photo credit: Stowe Boyd By “too rich to go bankrupt” I don’t mean someone so rich that they never will go bankrupt. What I mean by that is someone so rich that them going bankrupt would destabilize our economy and thus they deserve a bailout if bankruptcy ever threatens them. (Think Bill Gates plus Warren…
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A New Federal Role in Economic Recovery
My post on fundamental assumptions generated some good discussion which began waxing economic in flavor. As part of that discussion I had a new idea about a more reasonable approach the federal government could take to soften economic hard times without outright manipulating our expectations of reality as they do now. I should start by…
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What Are Your Fundamental Assumptions?
photo credit: quarksteilchen In the midst of a recent comment the author revealed a fundamental assumption that he and I don’t share that clearly explains why we have differing views on government: Federal mandates are about the only power the government has to prevent a race to the bottom. . . THE only way to…
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A Fundamental Difference Between Conservatives and Progressives
photo credit: Marcin Porwit Late in October a comment by Jason sparked my brain to recognize a subtle but fundamental difference between conservatives and progressives. Perhaps it should have been obvious simply by comparing the definitions for “conservative” and “progressive” but the implications seem to be both subtle and profound. The word “conservative” can be…
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Return of the Food Tax
Curtis Haring is concerned about the possibility that the state legislature will reinstate the food tax that they repealed all too recently. Considering that the state is facing a budget shortfall in the neighborhood of 3/4 of a Billion dollars, it is a very legitimate concern for Curtis and a very legitimate consideration for the…
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