Bernie Sanders, Renowned Tormenter of Windmills

Although my policy preferences more closely match Bernie Sanders than any other candidate — an unscientific Facebook survey put me something like 96% in line with Sanders — I’m not excited by his presidential candidacy. I have given him five dollars (as I also gave to Martin O’Malley and Hillary Clinton) to get on hisContinue reading “Bernie Sanders, Renowned Tormenter of Windmills”

Harry Truman’s Defense of Liberal Principles

Yesterday, I discovered this remarkable campaign speech, delivered by Harry S. Truman in 1948. What fascinates me is that what Truman said nearly seventy years ago could be said today without changing a word. To whit: Today the forces of liberalism face a crisis. The people of the United States must make a choice betweenContinue reading “Harry Truman’s Defense of Liberal Principles”

On Random Facebook Philosophizing

Today has been a great day for comments on Facebook. Usually there’s no reason to ever remember a comment made on Facebook — Facebook is such a transient thing, after all — but today I made two that I thought with pithy and important and worth remembering. The first has to do with GameStop. DeusContinue reading “On Random Facebook Philosophizing”

On Some Political Musings

Something has been nagging at me for days, and it took a column by E.J. Dionne in today’s Washington Post to crystalize my thinking. Dionne asks, is the progressive Left disappointed in Barack Obama, a month before his inauguration, for not being Left enough? At the same time, I’ve noticed the belief on the RightContinue reading “On Some Political Musings”

On Ronald Reagan, Doctors, and the Republican Party

Last night in the Vice Presidential debate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin closed her remarks with a quotation of Ronald Reagan: It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it,Continue reading “On Ronald Reagan, Doctors, and the Republican Party”