I have advocated for Canada to become a republic for a long time but recent developments in the United States have alarmed me, as the US political system seems unable to reform itself.
Tag: Political Theory
The belief in Justice is probably the breeding ground for injustice
I have long identified myself as an atheist – even though I’m an agnostic – in religion, an existentialist in philosophy and “anti-apocalyptic” or “anti-ideological” person in politics (i.e. a pragmatist). I have long struggled with this last definition, not because I don’t know what I am – I know exactly what I am, politically …
The Poverty of Ideology
This article on libertarianism says pretty much what I was trying to say in my book, only more rigorously (and with zero sense of humour). However, I think the general point of this article – that something like libertarianism is empty theory ignorant of human behaviour and human history – is actually a point that …
Proposal for Improved Voter Turnout
The Proposal A number of years ago, a friend of mine proposed an interesting idea for promoting voter turnout in Canada during one of our writer’s group meetings: turn voting into a lottery. The idea is relatively simple: each ballot cast is also a ticket for Canada’s largest lottery. Every voter is only allowed one …
Journalism and Democracy
We are at a time when journalism – or at least the potential to perform journalism – has become democratized in ways previously never thought possible. There are more “journalists” and outlets supposedly performing “journalism” than ever existed in history before. There are more people and outlets posing as journalistic. There is more coverage of …
What is Neo-Conservatism?
Since before the recent US election the use of the term conservative has been driving me crazy. To tell you the truth, it has driven me crazy since I learned about ideology in university over ten years ago, but now that I have a blog, and now that I am inundated daily with misuse of …
Liberal as a Slur in the United States
Every US presidential election makes me insane. I do my very best to avoid paying attention but it is very hard, with how dominant the TV coverage is, even in Canada. I find I have to pay attention to US government policy in my current job and so I find that this year I am …
19 Tough Questions for Libertarians, Part 4
This is part four in my series on the internet meme, “Jon Stewart’s 19 Tough Questions for Libertarians.” Please see part one here, part two here, and part three here. Today we deal with questions 10-19. You give money to the IRS because you think they’re gonna hire a bunch of people, that if your …
19 Tough; Questions for Libertarianism, Part 3
In this post we look at questions 4-9. For the first part see here. For the second see here. Do we live in a society or don’t we? Are we a collective? Everybody’s success is predicated on the hard work of all of us; nobody gets there on their own. Why should it be that …
19 Tough Questions for Libertarianism, part 2
So, for part two, we deal with questions 2-3. You can see the previous post here. One of the things that enhances freedoms are roads. Infrastructure enhances freedom. A social safety net enhances freedom. So obviously this is not a question, but a statement. But it gets to an important point, depending of course on …
19 "Tough" Questions for Libertarianism, Part 1
Around October 2011, Jon Stewart interviewed Andrew Napolitano, a prominent US “libertarian” on The Daily Show. At some point, some libertarians put Stewart’s interview questions into a meme sometimes called “Jon Stewart’s 19 tough questions for libertarians.” My understanding of this is that Napolitano did not acquit himself well enough in their eyes. This doesn’t …
RIP Gerald E. Tucker
Though Professor Gerald Tucker initially confounded me, as he did many first year students, he became one of my favourite professors at Bishop’s University while I was there – perhaps my favourite. He never finished the curriculum for any class I took with him – I’m not sure we ever made it 2/3rds of the …
Evolution of Riley’s Political Views
As a teenager, I was a statist, a borderline fascist. I may have believed in liberal ideas in theory – my grade 11 politics class group was the only group to propose a liberal constitution instead of a utopian one for a project – but I thought the government should draft the unemployed. I was …