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Blog 3 Columns

  • Is Kleptocracy the Most Common Form of Government?

    Is Kleptocracy the Most Common Form of Government?0

    “Kleptocracy” means “rule by thieves”. People have been complaining for millennia that such is what their government is. How common is such rule? And if it’s that common, can much be done about it? In his classic book The City of God, St. Augustine lamented that the Roman Empire, having been built by force and fraud,

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  • Is It Important to Support Small Businesses?

    Is It Important to Support Small Businesses?0

    It’s difficult not to feel a degree of sympathy for those arrested at the “Democracy Spring” demonstration on Capitol Hill. They are, after all, highlighting the gross injustice at the heart of our present political and economic system. Take, for example, the fact that, between 2007 and 2012, the two hundred most politically active corporations

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  • Has Porn Really Become a ‘Public Health Crisis’?

    Has Porn Really Become a ‘Public Health Crisis’?0

    The Washington Post ran a blaring headline last week: IS PORN IMMORAL? THAT DOESN’T MATTER: IT’S A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS. Gail Dines, a professor of sociology at Boston’s Wheelock College, said the science is settled: After 40 years of peer-reviewed research, scholars can say with confidence that porn is an industrial product that shapes how

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  • Does Abandoning Community Lead to Inequality?

    Does Abandoning Community Lead to Inequality?0

    For years the people in my neighborhood expressed a reserved politeness toward one another. But last year, that politeness exploded into downright camaraderie. The reason? The city council decided to railroad a project through that the young and old, rich and poor, liberal and conservative commonly despise. P.S. A common enemy unites even the oldest

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  • 7 Highly Profound Quotes from E.B. White

    7 Highly Profound Quotes from E.B. White0

    1) “If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” 2)

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  • 5 Ways to Practice Positive Skepticism

    5 Ways to Practice Positive Skepticism0

    Skepticism vs. cynicism: the modern day quest for certainty. Cynics are those who distrust most information they hear or see, and even more so when the information challenges their own system of beliefs. Because of this they tend to be intolerant of other people’s ideas. Skepticism, by comparison, is a key part of the critical

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  • What the Poor Need the Most?

    What the Poor Need the Most?0

    At times the works of Georges Bernanos may seem quite dark and penetrating. There is a brutal realism to his writings that acts as a mirror for the reader to pierce his own soul, to reflect upon his own evil and good. In The Diary of a Country Priest (1937), Bernanos follows the life of

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  • What Did Nietzsche Mean by ‘God is Dead’?

    What Did Nietzsche Mean by ‘God is Dead’?1

    Last week marked the 50th anniversary of one of the most famous magazine covers ever. In The Gay Science (1882), Friedrich Nietzsche’s character of the madman had proclaimed, “God is dead.” The Time cover for April 8, 1966, turned this proclamation into a provocative question for a world where religious practice was waning: But, though

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  • Pedophilia is a sexual orientation?!?

    Pedophilia is a sexual orientation?!?0

    The Independent is reporting on a thought-provoking AMA (“ask me anything”) on Reddit that featured an anonymous, though verified, criminal psychologist and his/her perspective on pedophilia. Paedophilia is a ‘sexual orientation’ like being straight or gay, according to a criminal psychologist. The idea that sexual attraction to children is an ‘orientation’ is highly controversial as

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