Gross Evidence of Rent-Seeking

It’s not often that you get enough evidence of rent-seeking you can actually find it entered into a public record. Leave it to Stupakistan to show the incredible power of insurance and other nondepository financial institutions to leave their fingerprints without shame on the public policy debate over the healthcare payments system. It [...]

The Culture of Cannibalism in US Politics: The Triumph of The Cyclop’s Values Over Democratic Citizenship

{The first essay in this series introduced a model I created to explain the cycle of corruption that plagues US politics. This essay looks into the roots of this corruption. It takes a long time to get to the payoff. Further, the conclusion is somewhat ex nihilo if you have not read [...]

America isn’t easy: balancing competing moral claims in advanced citizenship societies

America isn’t easy

Building and sustaining a diverse community is not easy.
What should we celebrate?
Celebrate: to perform (a sacrament or ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites; to honor by solemn ceremonies and refraining from ordinary business; to hold up or play for public notice.
What should we tolerate?
Tolerate: to endure or resist the [...]

Common Sense and the sensus communis: anatomy of an American pressure cooker

Gay-Lussac
The pressure of a fixed mass and fixed volume of a gas is directly proportional to the gas’s temperature.
This relationship is known as the Gay-Lussac’s Law and a pressure cooker is an example of the law in practice. Cooking under pressure creates the possibility of cooking with high temperature liquids because the boiling point of [...]

Uncle Sam Contracts Frater Magnus to Safeguard his Healthcare Liberty

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. – Abraham Lincoln
There’s a sucker born every minute. – P.T. Barnum
We, the People, are born every minute. The last ten [...]

A New McCarthyism

When I fall into the trap of thinking we must’ve learned something from our past, even our recent past, I get blindsided one more time by some vile person twisting patriotism to one’s country into a jingoistic witch hint.  I’ve been appalled at the comments we’ve seen these past few days.  It makes me believe [...]

It’s Time to Downsize the US

In difficult circumstances, such as the current economic crisis, it’s normal to work out how one got there as a means to avoid repeating the process. In the current situation, the discussion seems to range between those who feel that the situation is already working itself out, to those who feel that structural dangers [...]

The Culture of Cannibalism in US Politics: The Cycle of Corruption

Mark Twain, in “Cannibalism in the Cars,” suggested that cannibalism of the body politic is a logical outcome of the practice of the political values of the elected representatives of the United States, in dire circumstances. What would occur, if such dire circumstances did not require a natural disaster, but became a systemic [...]

Entitlements and Smoke Filled Rooms

I recently received an email from someone I worked on a campaign with a couple of years ago.  I’ll call her Daisy.  Daisy is one of the most talented campaign volunteers you wlll ever want to meet.  I hope someone pays her big someday.
Anyway, Daisy and I had an email exchange that eventually boiled down [...]

Power in the USA: political string theory in US politics

How are power relations shaping the U.S. political sphere? From the primary campaign to the tea parties and the raucous healthcare forums, Americans are out in force. Regardless of their political stripe, are their actions in their own best interest or are they being played? What influences are determining how people perceive [...]