Wickedness of Civilization & the Role of Government

I’ve become aware of an inner conflict in the American psyche that goes back to even before the country was founded. This inner conflict includes those on both the left and the right, but it often seems the clearest on the right since the right has taken a more radical stance these past decades. This inner conflict [...]

What is a Church? Soul vs Spirit

This post is third in a series, but it is more narrowly focused than the previous posts. I wanted to isolate a single issue that I presented in my first post: “Many people have a nonchalant attitude about community. They just don’t understand its value or they don’t appreciate how difficult it is to create and maintain. This is [...]

Opportunity For Leftist Reform

I realize often think about things differently than others. What seems obvious to me doesn’t seem obvious to so many people I might agree with on various issues. Many liberals fear the Republicans which I find odd because Republicans are weaker right now than they’ve been in my entire life. Many liberals fear Ron Paul, but [...]

Iowa City: Public Good & Democratic Government (pt 2)

This is a continuation of a previous post which can be found here. Read that post first in order to understand the background to this post. I’m writing this post with the assumption someone already knows what I’m talking about. * * * I first noticed outsourcing in Iowa City government when I began working a seasonal [...]

Deep South, American Hypocrisy, & Liberal Traditions

This post is a continuation of my previous post: Deep South, Traditional Conservatism, & Future Possibilities. I have a couple of points to add to my analysis/commentary. First, I want to point out the consistent culture and politics of the Deep South, not just recently but for its entire history. Second, I want to point out an element [...]

Deep South, Traditional Conservatism, & Future Possibilities

I have a bunch of thoughts rolling around in my head: the cultures of early American immigrations and colonies, the different types of liberalisms especially the differences between contemporary American liberalism and classical liberalism, the defense by liberals of traditional conservatism against fiscal conservatives, and maybe a few other things besides. I’ll begin with the [...]

Tea Party Welfare

Books About Conservatism and the Tea Party By Timothy Noah, The New York Times “Today, nearly all political centrists are Democrats. And with the rise of the Tea Party, Republicans are experiencing another 1964 moment. Indeed, Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson report in their exceptionally informative book, “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism,” [...]

Iowa City: Public Good & Democratic Government

Here is a local issue that effects me personally, but it’s very similar to local issues all across the country. Union calls city layoffs ‘deplorable’ Proposal would eliminate five full-time positions “Miller says the union wants the city to explore other cost-cutting options before laying off workers, and he points to “extras” such as city [...]

Magical Marxism & Other Alternative Visions

I noticed the book Magical Marxism by Andy Merrifield (links at the end to give some understanding about the book and author). I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this post. I simply was interested in the basic idea as presented in the title. I was thinking about how this could be [...]

‘Capitalist’ US vs ‘Socialist’ Finland

Finland vs America is simply socialism vs capitalism. The Finnish are running their public education system according to the model of democratic socialism (in case you didn’t know, democratic socialism is what Marx was advocating). In Finland, their social democracy doesn’t encourage or prioritize capitalist competition but instead encourages and prioritizes democracy in its best sense. In [...]