By Joel Bowman, on March 2nd, 2019% Ignorance is bliss is a common saying for good reason: We have to think about things to worry about them, and most of the time we are preoccupied with our day-to-day activities while we remain ignorant about major problems that may be just around the corner. A related saying, The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t, suggests that we can adjust to an uncomfortable familiar, whereas a new situation might cause worse problems.
One of the things about democracies is that people get to elect those in charge of governance with regularity. With every election, the . . . → Read More: Ignorance and Bliss
By Joel Bowman, on December 23rd, 2018% This is Reality? I am old enough to remember when the U.S. government was being run by adults. That was also true for most of the governments in the so-called civilized world—we had International differences of opinion about forms of government and territorial concerns. Most of us agreed with some of them and disagreed with others, but we were fairly certain that most countries were making decisions about government by relatively rational means, with military conflict being a last resort.
Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, describes an alternative universe in which nothing is what it seems. Alice had . . . → Read More: Down the Rabbit Hole (Redux)
By Joel Bowman, on November 9th, 2018% Democracy isn’t easy. That may be the reason monarchies have been much more common, starting with primitive, tribal chieftains back in the days of “pre-history.” The reason we don’t have more and better democracies in the world, is, as gerrymandering came about. The party in charge changes the rules to ensure that it will remain in charge. One of the ways the Ku Klux Klan gained political power, for example, was gerrymandering. That wasn’t their only way, of course, as intimidation also played a significant role.
It is hard for individuals to resist a popular national movement. The . . . → Read More: Democracy
By Joel Bowman, on September 23rd, 2018% Have you noticed how often the GOP cheats to win? In the “old days,” cheating to win was often ascribed to the Democrats. That changed with Richard M. Nixon, who lied about a secret plan to end the Vietnam War. It wasn’t really a plan, of course, and the US exit from Vietnam was anything but glorious. And then came the Watergate scandal.” That was followed by the racism of the Southern Strategy, which focused on denying blacks access to the polls and encouraging whites to vote for racist policies. And that has basically been the GOP strategy since, as . . . → Read More: Cheating to Win
By Joel Bowman, on October 7th, 2017% Just when I had essentially become numb to our current political situation, Las Vegas exploded in chaos as a result of a a planned attack of automatic weapons fire. Las Vegas was not the first mass shooting in US history. Here’s a brief (and limited) list: “The Top 10. Mass shootings, of course, are not the only gun deaths in the States. The US holds the world record for gun deaths not related to the carnage of war.
The Second Amendment to the Constitution actually encourages gun ownership, primarily for citizens involved in a well-regulated militia. What the Framers . . . → Read More: Where to Begin
By Joel Bowman, on January 1st, 2012% One of the things I’ve been paying increasing attention to (perhaps because of the ongoing political debate in the U.S.) is fear marketing. I find it amazing at how pervasive “fear appeals” are and the various ways they are used to sell “stuff,” including politicians and political “talking points.” The basic concept is that we really need to be afraid of X, and, if we want to be safe, we need to stock up on (or vote for) the anti-X.
The world has a lot of risky stuff in it, of course, and we are undoubtedly safer when we . . . → Read More: Selling Fear in the New Year
By Joel Bowman, on November 21st, 2011% In the movie, “Master and Commander,” Captain Jack (Russell Crowe) asks the ship’s surgeon, Dr. Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany) to choose one of the two weevils crawling around in their food. The doctor initially says that they are the same in the critical aspects: “Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.” When Captain Jack insists on a choice, the doctor chooses the larger one. The captain says that he has chosen incorrectly because “in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils.”
Now that the political . . . → Read More: Lesser of Two Weevils
|
|
|
Comments are closed 
