Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Newspaper Survival Tactics
Some people who read what I have written about news media might think that I would like to see the demise of newspapers – they would be wrong. I do think that news organizations generally need to make some adjustments to better serve their purpose (am am assuming a purpose of informing their audience). As…
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Change You Can Believe In
Many of the conservative Republicans who opposed John McCain even after he was the last Republican Presidential Candidate of 2008 rightly observed that the differences between McCain and Obama (or McCain and Bush, or Obama and Bush) were largely cosmetic in nature. They were not swayed by the rhetoric of change from the Obama campaign,…
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Revolving Doors
This year the state legislature tried to close a revolving door. In 2007 Congress tried to close their version of that door. I’m not sure how well either of them will work over time, but if it’s important to close revolving doors, maybe we should try closing another revolving door – the one from one…
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Looking Back
It was interesting to read what Glen Warchol relates today about the first anniverarly of the Texas FLDS raid. Glen gives us the statistics one year later and it is almost identical to what what known weeks before any of the children were returned to their homes. I hope we don’t see such a massive…
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Federalist Nos. 62 – 63
Federalist Papers 62 and 63 begin examining the Senate, just as the House has been examined in recent papers. I was quickly surprised to find this gem: So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every…
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Half Truths
Regardless of what political agenda is being pushed I hate to see people speak or perpetuate half truths. I try very hard not to do that myself. Today I would like to tell the story of two half truths. The second half truth is the declaration by President Obama that he intends to cut the…
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Con-Gress
As much as it may be fashionable to blame congress for many of our problems I think it is fair to take an unbiased look at how congress functions. As I began to do so I realized that no matter how numerous my complaints about the legislation we hear about and the legislative process itself…
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Federalist Nos. 59 – 61
Federalist Papers 59, 60, and 61 discuss the power of Congress to regulate the elections of members of Congress. This power is meant to be exercised by the individual states while allowing the federal government to make some blanket provisions to ensure some uniformity within the union. Some people worried that Congress might be able…
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Federalist No. 58
I was tempted to not closely read Federalist No. 58 because I already knew that the assumptions it contained, however accurate they may have been in the 18th century had been rendered obsolete int he 20th century. For the first 120 years of our history the size of the House was expanded as the population…
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Two (or more) Wrongs Don’t Make a Right
I was listening to Peter Schiff’s Wall Street Unspun for this week and he said something that cemented a change of perspective I had been considering regarding the AIG bonuses. I had been thinking about this idea of taxing the bonuses at 100% and relizing that it amounted to an ex post facto law –…
Got any book recommendations?