In These Times

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• • 18 May 06
  • 5:46 pm

  "Isn’t it a sign of mental disorder when distorted reasoning is unchanged by empirical evidence? What is it about marijuana that drives our politicians insane?" Nope. It's neither mental derangement nor political insanity. It is simply business. Connect the dots. Since when has distorted reasoning stopped any political initiative? In fact, most political initiatives are characterized by a passionate state of mind, and more or less distorted reasoning. Precisely because political discourse is about Power, not Rationality. Eric Hoffer had some interesting things to say about this 'passionate' mind state in his works. This is easy: The vast prison-oriented society that …

  Posted to Science: The Drug Wars Latest Victim

• • 18 May 06
  • 6:22 pm

  In contemporary societies if one wanted to get a job but didn't want to go to college and accumulate a lot of debt, what would be the best way of going about it? There doesn't seem to be a lot of secure alternatives in the united States, but in Europe (Germany for instance) a lot of young people don't attend the Gymnasium (German version of college) but instead are taught a skill: welding, health care, plumbing, auto repair and so on. There seems to be some bias in the united States against such an approach. In fact, as the lady said, …

  Posted to Hey Millennials, Debt Becomes You

• • 18 May 06
  • 8:56 pm

  Reading through the posts on this topic I can detect a lot of animosity between the reds and the blues, but that didn't shed much light on the article itself until I hit the post by Phaedrus, who has a plan. God bless him! Good luck man. The reds don't read any non-sanctioned authors. Or at least up until now they haven't done much along those lines. How to get past that? The other poster that made a light go on is Theloneous who wrote: "She must mean “another totalitarian movement” because the current corporate agent called the bush Administration can't …

  Posted to Saving Secular Society

• • 19 May 06
  • 5:31 am

  There seems to be a lot of eloquent rhetoric here focused on patching up the differences between the reds and the blues. Ms. Goldberg is pretty clear that this is not the focus of her ideas: "My ideas are not about reconciliation or healing. It would be good if a leader stepped forward who could recognize the grievances of both sides, broker some sort of truce, and mend America’s ragged divides. The anxieties that underlay Christian nationalism’s appeal—fears about social breakdown, marital instability and cultural decline—are real. They should be acknowledged and, whenever possible, addressed. But as long as the movement …

  Posted to Saving Secular Society

• • 19 May 06
  • 1:22 pm

  Theloneous: Just because your comments are cryptic and cynical doesn't mean they are not worthy of some serious thought. I find that a lot of the cynical and cryptic thinkers furnish the most food for thought. What with the rise of the sound bite and the abandoment of what was once considered to be rational discourse we have a lot of celebrities running around with their 'truthiness' and what was once a debate, or even a principled conflict, has degenerated into farce...or worse. You obviously know all this, but sometimes it is worth pointing out anyway. Yes, the lights are going …

  Posted to Saving Secular Society