Dear Berniecrats, Green Partiers, Socialist Alternatives, and other Progressives… I extend to you an invitation to build a Progressive Coalition. I get it. Your views create separation from the Democratic party. Your views are not fully captured by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Platform. You long for a more representative movement. It is not my […]
Is it time to remove Democratic support for Socialist Sawant? In 2013, I supported Kshama Sawant in her race for Seattle City Council. I’m not a socialist, but I was convinced that she represented enough of our shared values that among the mix of nine city council members, she’d help create space for a more […]
The intent of the 2nd Amendment is to keep us safe. The result of the 2nd Amendment is that we are less safe. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t work.
“Voting the Lesser of Two Evils…” This meme is fundamentally dishonest in the context of Democracy. To use it says you simply don’t understand what a Democracy is; don’t understand what it means to be in community with “We The People.” If you choose to see voting as a choice between evils, then you are […]
We. Will. Will We? We will. Or, we will not. We is choice. One can’t choose relationship without first choosing fidelity. Fidelity is the choice. Some aspects of fidelity and infidelity are natural. We is (or can be) transcendent of the so-called human condition. If two (or more) will it to be. Why so-called? Because “human” […]
I grew up with an ideologically pure belief system. For years, good/evil were pure concepts for me. Defined by this belief system, I could categorize anyone very quickly, and place them on a neatly defined spectrum. That all came crashing down, as do many notions of purity, once the reality of the world beats us […]
The Tea Party on the Right and the Bernie Supporters on the Left frame the dysfunction of government this way: “The Establishment is ignoring us!” This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way Democracy works. Democracy is, by definition, an averaging of political will. Push. Pull. You hope for two steps forward for every one […]
Bernie Sanders and his campaign are fond of comparing themselves to FDR. They use FDR’s New Deal policies as examples of the socialism they’d hope to implement. But FDR himself denied that he was implementing socialism.
Inherent in “We The People” is a rejection of purity politics. Democracy requires compromise; otherwise it’s merely authoritarianism. The hard work of our lives is the slow work of convincing our neighbor. There is no other way. There is no short cut. From one of my favorite philosophers, Tony Kushner: “The principle of […]
Premise: Where voter ideology is distributed along a bell cure, “Left Center” and “Right Center” candidates are more viable than “Left” or “Right” candidates, producing 1 win or 1 tie compared to 1 tie or 1 loss. Results from Matchups: Left or Right Candidates will produce: 1 tie, 1 loss Left Center or Right Center […]
The first challenge in a life lived honestly is to unravel our own mythology.
Tolerance of intolerance violates the law of noncontradiction. It’s common to hear the intolerant attempt to paint the tolerant as hypocrites for not tolerating their intolerance. This is a cheap rhetorical trick that while it convinces nobody, can often confuse an argument. And there’s a strong logical foundation for intolerance of intolerance, especially for a […]
“I know that most men [people], including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, […]
Alix and Lulu examine the surprising effect our expectations can have on the people around us. Plus, the story of a blind man who says expectations have helped him see. Yes, see.
“Intelligence: being able to adapt our behavior to challenges.” –Neil Degrasse Tyson in Cosmos.
Improbable Moments in an Unbelievable NFC Championship Game: First Half: Wilson is one for eight for 14 yards, three interceptions and a 0.0 quarterback rating. 3rd Quarter, 7:00 to go. 3rd & 19 29 yards to Baldwin for a first down. Sea 0 GB 16 3rd Quarter, 4:48 to go. 4th & 10 Fake Field […]
First, trust. Absent trust, nothing. With trust, the possibility of everything.
The wisdom of age, acquired through experience, is not sufficient to match the wisdom of modernity, acquired through data. This is the fundamental failure of conservatism. The only way out of this myopic view of the importance of one’s own experience is to love & respect others, recognizing that our experiences are limited to our […]
Over the course of 10 years, as I tried to make sense of the religion I had left (Mormonism) and why I had believed much of it in the first place, I began to deconstruct the very notion of belief and knowledge, starting with the foundational question “what can we know?” That process gave me […]