As Humpty Dumpty famously said to Alice, "When I use a word, my dear, that word means whatever I want it to mean." Here in the U.S. of Wonderland, we are about to launch a "preemptive" attack on Iraq–preemptive being the word that means whatever George W. Bush wants it to mean.
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Dorothy Has Left Kansas
Hellfire Nation, a recent book by political science professor James Morone, examines American history through the lens of moral and religious fervor, and makes a pretty good case for the proposition that America is preoccupied with sin and salvation?often to the detriment of national interest or even common sense. The hysterical backlash against recent progress on gay rights certainly supports his thesis.
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Researching Charitable Choice
When we began our study in 1999, it was a relatively obscure academic inquiry triggered by my research interest in the constitutional and policy dimensions of privatization. Then George W. Bush became President, and his Faith-Based Initiative became a centerpiece of the domestic policy agenda, and our academic study was suddenly in the cross-hairs of an acrimonious political debate.
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Game Theory
Some people go into politics because they care about policy. Others view politics as another species of sport: who wins? how? what tactical maneuvers are effective? What’s the score? For those of us who have been unable to understand how or why a man with no obvious engagement with any policy issue, domestic or foreign, became President, game theory may supply the answer.
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Why Separation is Good for Church and Necessary for State
I?ll start with James Madison, my favorite Founder and the one whose views on religious liberty dominated the Constitutional Convention. Madison based his understanding of natural rights and the role of the state on Locke?s ?social compact.? But, as one scholar has noted, because the exercise of religion requires that each person follow his own conscience, it is a particular kind of natural right, an inalienable natural right. Since opinions and beliefs can be shaped only by individual consideration of evidence that that particular individual finds persuasive, no one can really impose opinions on any one else. Unlike property, or even speech, religious liberty cannot be sold, or alienated, so it does not become part of the social compact. The state must remain noncognizant of its citizens? religions?meaning that it simply has no jurisdiction over religion. A just state must be blind to religion. It can?t use religion to classify citizens, and it can neither privilege nor penalize citizens on account of religion.
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