Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
-
Anti-Materialism
From two very different sources today I was pointed toward two very similar views regarding our overly materialistic society. Misty Fowler linked to Winning the Rat Race by Quitting it: We are a country obsessed with consumption, which would be fine if we seemed to be fulfilled getting bigger TVs but having less time to…
-
SEP Subsidies
A story this morning instantly made me think about the discussion that followed when I wrote about Funding Mass Transit back in July. This story is about a driver who chose to use biofuel in his vehicle: Bob Teixeira decided it was time to take a stand against U.S. dependence on foreign oil. So last…
-
Useless 401K
Why is it that the government gets to tell me when I can spend my money? That’s a question I have asked myself many times. The “you can’t touch it until you’re 60” rule is proof of why it is not the business of government to get involved in what private citizens do with their…
-
NYT On Health Care
I was impressed with the New York Times editorial The High Cost of Health Care. I don’t really have time to review it here right now (it’s quite long) but it is well worth the read and I would like to come back to it later to review it. They talk about some of the…
-
Many Primary Ideas
There are a variety of ideas for how we can fix our primary election process. They range from a lottery system proposed in comments and a post earlier on my site to more authoritative proposals such as rotating regional primaries as outlined by Trey Grason (go to page 25 of the PDF – hat tip…
-
Utah Legislative Tenure
First I would like to thank Steve Urquhart for his comments. And in case anyone got the wrong impression, I had no intention to spar with Steve over this issue or single him out. I respect Rep. Urquhart for his openness on this and many other issues. He has convincingly demonstrated his honest belief that…
-
Term Limits
I asked what people were interested in and the interest seemed to be term limits. I decided to do some initial research and found a good resource on term limits. The states that currently have term limits are: ARIZONA ARKANSAS CALIFORNIA COLORADO FLORIDA LOUISIANA MAINE MICHIGAN MISSOURI MONTANA NEBRASKA NEVADA OHIO OKLAHOMA SOUTH DAKOTA In…
-
Step Forward on Education
There has been lots of talk since November 6th about moving on to improve education after the defeat of vouchers. People on both sides of that debate have talked about working together towards a common goal. I have been happy with the tone of talk, but I have wondered what is the next concrete step…
-
Smart Presidential Candidate
LaVarr Webb commented today in Utah Policy Daily on a great column by David Brooks at the New York Times called The Happiness Gap. Brooks was talking about the gap between how happy people are with their own lives and how optimistic they are about government. I think Brooks is right that people are beginning…
Got any book recommendations?