Tag: discourse
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I Pledge
With all the uproar over the showing of this video to elementary students I have been asked to weigh in on the video and whether it was appropriate to show it to the students. Of course others will have their own opinions and you are free to view the video yourself and let me know…
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The Politics of Fear
photo credit: ag2r I was listening to NPR this morning on the way to work and they were discussing the use of fear as a political tactic. The story was not what I would consider fair and balance as they asserted that only those who oppose health care reform are making use of the tactic,…
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Nobody Wants the Status Quo
photo credit: planspark Proponents of the current health care proposals charge that those who oppose these proposals only want the status quo. No honest Democrats have stepped forward to admit the truth that opponents of these measures have been offering alternatives and decrying the status quo. The leader among dishonest Democrats today is none other…
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All Things to All People
In a classic case of Federal-sightedness, President Obama is stepping in to mediate an altercation between a black professor and a white police officer. Normally I would be disappointed that the President had nothing better to do but lately I have had more of a mindset where this makes me happy – in fact, I…
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Honest Democrats in Congress
If we are ever to achieve any health care reform that will actually have a positive impact on our society it will require that we have honest Democrats in Congress. Not just any honest Democrats, but enough of them and in the right places that they can use their honesty to guide the debate. The…
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Online Conservative Desert
I understand that it is a commonly held belief that the political left has more influence in online political activity than the political right. Now we have research by Richard Davis that sheds a bit of light on that. Davis also queried more than 200 journalists to learn how they use blog content in their…
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It’s About Us
While posting about Cheney’s Worldview, Tim Lynch captures the perspective that drives my thinking on subjects such as torture and indefinite detention: So we shouldn’t let the terrorists see us get “caught up in arguments” about the wisdom of our foreign policy, about whether our country should go to war, about our country’s treaty obligations,…
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Our Broken Debate
The big question in the debate over torture right now is “who knew what and when did they know it?” That question is being used by Republicans right now to implicate Speaker Nancy Pelosi as having done nothing with what she knew and thus being complicit in any torture committed under the previous administration. The…
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Federalist No. 67
In Federalist No. 67 Hamilton is clearly upset at those who oppose the proposed Constitution because of their outrageous misrepresentation of the content of the Constitution in relation to the office of President. As I read the example of misrepresentation that he recounted I recognized the same spirit of selective fact presentation that is altogether…
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Federal-Sighted
Most people have probably heard of the two basic classes of vision problems, far-sightedness and near-sightedness. For those who are not clear on the differences, far-sightedness is characterized by the eye being able to focus on objects at a distance while objects up close are blurry. Conversely, near-sightedness is characterized by the eye being able…