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"Tradition?? The only good traditions are food traditions. The rest are repressive."

"There are two ways to think. The first is to trust to your ancestors, your religious leaders, or your charismatic professors. The second is to question, to challenge, to explore history for meanings, and to analyze issues. This latter is called Critical Thinking, and it is this that is the mission of my web site. "

Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman  

November 2023

Minorities that Benefit Democracy

Democracy is based on the free and fair election of majority rule. In autocracies, minorities rule: either a dictator or a minority party. However, another element of democracies is gradual change, usually proposed by a minority recognized over time as right. How else can we account for the changes that western civilization has experienced over time.

Slavery, for example, was considered a universal institution for centuries. Different civilizations practiced it in different ways. more...

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Minority Rule (2 of 2)


Our democracy is at a breaking point. About 40 percent of our population that votes Republican is divided: about half of them in the new Trump Cult and the other half left homeless. The Democratic Party is still devoted to democracy, but they are often like one hand clapping.

The country?s distress must be addressed, or we will wind up an autocracy, with or without Trump. The issues that must be met are the following:

The Electoral College, which gives too m more...

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Minority Rule (1 of 2)


If one were to ask dozens of people on the street what is wrong with our country today, they would probably say the lies that have divided us into factions, or the tremendous gap in earnings between the corporate heads and the rest, or the corruption in the legal community (the Supreme Court the most) that suggests our justice system is crumbling

A new book, just released, has made me see a bigger picture about what is wrong with us and how it can be fixed. In the book: Ty more...

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Political Corruption


There is nothing new about discovering people with trusted positions abusing that trust, taking bribes from those seeking special privileges. Corruption such as this can be found among such commonly trusted vendors as butchers selling tainted meat for a profit, food and drug inspectors taking bribes to pass foul products, judges taking bribes to overlook criminal behavior, and senators and representatives using their power to benefit bribers.

Lest one think this is only a more...

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August 2022

Policies or Principles?

The January 6th Congressional hearings have provided us with an important new way to look at politics. We have long been fixated on the policies that true believers in each party support, a fixation that makes government difficult, if not impossible.

Since Newt Gingrich, House Speaker in 1995-99, declared that Democrats were the enemy, not their colleagues and competitors in governing, we have morphed into a divided country. Gone are the days that Congressmen and Senators could wo more...

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World Survey of Democracies


Two valuable non-partisan surveys track the standing of 166 sovereign states, 164 of them UN member states. One is the Democracy Index, compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a UK-based private company which publishes The Economist.

The other is Freedom House, a non-profit, majority U.S. government- funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, more...

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When Fiction Cuts Close


I rarely review novels, relegating my readings to just fun for me. But I did recently review a novel by Stacey Abrams, who is running for Governor of Georgia. Her novel, While Justice Sleeps, provided so much insight into what goes on in the lives of Supreme Court justices that for this alone, the novel was a valuable read. But in addition, the plot was so clever and Abrams knowledge of chess made this extra fun to read.

This time, I am reviewing a novel by Hillary Clinton more...

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December 2021

Justice for All? (1 of 2)


Human beings seem programmed to want fairness: justice. We want to know that our leaders are protecting us from those who are violent or taking our property. Most of us want a just world, one that we can count on to keep us safe or remedy abuse.

The system of justice that we have in the United States is largely the replica of the British system. We have judges, juries "of our peers," and prisons that enforce sentences. We also have two opposing lawyers or teams, one defend more...

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Build Back Better Part 2

There is a division of opinion on what constitutes "infrastructure." The common definition has to do with the brick and mortar elements that make society possible: roads, bridges, transportation, water systems, and energy. There is no doubt that poor infrastructure of this sort makes for unhappy citizens. Potholes are a nuisance and can harm vehicles. But lead in water from rusting pipes can damage the health and brains of everybody. Neglected railroads can cause massive accidents and death toll more...

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Good Character and the Constitution


Until the former presidency of Donald Trump, we made a number of assumptions about the American system: its protections, its norms of political behavior, and its historic evolution to more and more inclusions. We generally trusted in our legal system, particularly the Supreme Court, to protect our Democracy.

We did not pay much attention to how much damage could be done by an individual with a bad character who could corrupt a cadre of fellow bad characters to support him. more...

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One Hand Clapping?

We have had few times in our history that one party was so dominant that it governed almost unimpeded. The Republicans after the end of the Civil War had an almost unchallenged role until Woodrow Wilson in 1914. And the Democrats during the Depression and throughout World War II dominated, even granting a president four reelections.

However, we have never had a time in which there was refusal of the minority party to engage in bipartisan legislation. The current Republican party, more...

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Panic in Party?s Demise

We have a model of a party?s death throes in history, when during the 1850s, the Whig Party floundered to find its footing. Whatever issues had been important to the Whigs from its inception: limited government, fiscal responsibility, and aristocratic values (John Quincy Adams was the last of such), by 1850, slavery divided the party and the desperation was visible.

One of the worst decisions made by the Whig-dominated Supreme Court was to sustain the Fugitive Slave act: that any more...

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August 2021

Afghanistan and Nation Building

As we watch the failure of one of our most sustained efforts at nation building, it is time to revisit when this policy can work and when it cannot. If we do not learn this, we will continue to blunder into hopeless situations.

President Woodrow Wilson established this national aspiration when, at the conclusion of World War I, he was hopeful that our entry could help "make the world safe for democracy." In the wake of that war, three empires did collapse, and a number of aspiring more...

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American History Culture Wars


The Russians have long been the masters of propaganda, the infiltration of conspiracy theories and big lies in the hope of sowing dissention in democracies. They have used these methods to keep their own populations from critical thinking that might result in revolt or (in a make-believe democracy) vote them out of power.

Their efforts go back to the late 19th century, when they manufactured a notorious lie, "the Protocols of the Elders of Zion," that pretended to be a sec more...

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The Fate of the Republican Party

We are historically a two-party republic, a system that works in a country that is essentially centrist, electing representatives and presidents not far from moderately conservative or moderately liberal. We have found that this arrangement works for us most of the time, and has made us a more stable republic than many with a multi-party Parliamentary system.

However, we have undergone terrible periods in our history when the two major parties had irreconcilable differences. Both more...

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