I’m getting up in years as they say, but no election in my lifetime has been remotely this important, because at its base, the key difference between John Kerry and George Bush has nothing to do with personality, likeability or even intellect. This election, we are choosing between science and fundamentalist religious fervor. We are deciding whether this nation will base its decisions on evidence or faith.
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Send the Legislators Back to School
I don’t know about anyone else, but I?m awfully tired of seeing my tax dollars diverted from proper government functions (paving highways, paying police) to fund the ideological (not to be confused with logical) fixations of a few legislators. Some of this session’s proposals are not just bad policy, they are positively surreal.
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Studying Charitable Choice
I recently attended a lecture by the eminent sociologist Robert Wuthnow. At the reception preceding the lecture, we were introduced by one of my colleagues, who mentioned that I am just finishing a three-year study of the first Charitable Choice legislation–the precursor to President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative. Wuthnow responded with a question. "Based upon what you have learned so far, what would you tell President Bush?"
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Who Do We Trust?
If we don’t trust government, we resent (and often evade) its laws. If we don’t trust charities, we stop giving. If we don’t trust the clergy, we lose respect for religion. If we don’t trust the media, we tune it out. The problem is, when distrust and cynicism become too widespread, society comes apart.
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Dirty Harry
The political circus in California has been temporarily eclipsed by the one in Alabama, where Judge Roy Moore is currently playing his own version of Terminator by ferociously attacking the rule of law.
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