Loosely Speaking

By Ciel - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Everything Else

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

As long as it's "First Past the Post" elections...

The math means there will always be only two top parties. The way for a third party to have a viable chance is by that party becoming so strong that it unseats the weaker of the two currently at the top. We didn't quite achieve that this time, but the Sanders phenomenon has demonstrated that we could have the numbers, if only the numbers keep our dander up, and strengthen a new Independents Party--by whatever name--hold our own primaries/caucuses, get our own candidate on the debate stage and... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Choices

As a formal resident in Washington State, where there is no income tax, my financial considerations are simpler than here in Colorado where I have actually lived for several years now. Simpler and less demanding. There is a part of me that always seeks my personal advantage, and this part has argued since I came out here that I should maintain legal residence in Washington. There is another part that wants to cast my vote where it will make the most difference, will benefit my causes and... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Politics is essentially an 'evil' game.

Whether we like it or not, good folk that we are, politics is and has always been a game: a dirty, rough, mean, evil game. There have always been the players who love the game, who embrace its inherent ugliness because they must play with the tools and rules of the game, or because they like those things, and relish playing with them. Our error is in confusing our leaders with our parents, a little psychological trap not only easy but even natural to fall into. We want to trust our parents as we... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

How to actually communicate with someone you think is dead wrong

http://qz.com/778767/to-tell-someone-theyre-wrong-first-tell-them-how-theyre-right/?utm_source=qzfb The headline glibly calls this a trick, but that doesn't do it justice. This is a rational, effective way to communicate with people who are making decisions without true or sufficient information. Everyone has some pieces of the truth. No one has all the pieces. It isn't about telling someone you see their point of view, it is about actually seeing it, accepting and acknowledging to them that you... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

further thoughts on sitting out the Anthem

Such a fuss! A football player sits out the Anthem, exercising his First Amendment right to express his opinion, and Many People, ironically reactionary to anyone asserting their legal and Constitutional rights, start screaming as if he is eating their babies. He is attacked over the fact that he is himself privileged because of opportunities afforded by living in this country that has paid him enormously to play a game for their entertainment. Therefore, how dare he complain about any aspect of... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, August 29, 2016

Bad Sportsmanship

So, we have this US football star, Colin something, who refused and refuses to stand up during the national anthem. He is protesting particularly the shooting by police of unarmed black men and boys which has become such a dominant and repetitive story in the news of late. Then we have the knee-jerkers using their right of free speech to deny him his right of free speech, telling him to stand or get out of the country. They resent his anger and what they see as his disrespect of the US which has... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Yay, money!

Money is a battery for storing the energies produced by human work. Or a transformer, changing human work into stuff. It is the potter trading pottery for the farmer's grain, equalizing difference in need and quantity-value. Money can be very useful stuff. Accumulation of lots of money allows for acquisition of very high-energy (expensive) stuff, like roads and market-places and the other infrastructure that helps the potter and the farmer get their goods out so they can generate the money to... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Splintered Parties and the Math of Voting

FormerStudentIntern brought up an interesting point in his comment to the previous post, suggesting that the two major Parties might splinter, hereafter. I'm not sure what splintering would look like. Would the Tea Partyists go make their own party, now they have invaded and pretty much destroyed the GOP? Could the GOP recover its credibility as the conservative yet rational Party? And would the Democratic Party ever escape the accusations and evidences of corruption that have come upon it in... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, August 12, 2016

Today on Facebook...

So much is said about voter turn-out and voter preparedness and voter ignorance... And not just voters. I wrote this about that: In the US, it has always been the right of all citizens to vote. (Except, it hasn't always been all citizens, or certain members of our society were not considered citizens until that citizenship and enfranchisement was fought for and eventually, won.) And maybe because citizenship is all that is required, this right is so undervalued that many people don't bother to... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Humanity

I am torn between my determined faith in the essential goodness and common sense of most people, and my other certainty that there are a whole lot more stupid people out there than I can fathom. Greyhound racing is being banned in Australia, People save mongooses (mongeese?) from dying of thirst, chimpanzees and other animals are being recognized as having the right not to be laboratory experiments, more and more elephants are beingretired from 'show business' to refuges like The Elephant... Sign in to see full entry.

Headlines (What is this?)