José Azel 158 posts 0 comments

As individuals, we know little about the world and its people. Yet, we hold strong opinions about what should be done to solve most problems. We "know" what should be done in Iraq, without being able to locate Iraq on a map. Also, many…
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Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker has coined the term “Left Pole” to describe a mythical place where the political Left resides intellectually. Whereas, from the North Pole all directions are south, from the Left Pole, all opinion that…
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Liberal democracy is a political system distinguished not only by free and fair elections, but also by the rule of law, separation of powers, and the safeguard of our fundamental liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property.…
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Do we have a right to think whatever we want, or do we have an intellectual duty to follow the evidence? Philosophers have long struggled with this question, particularly in dealing with the existence of God. In American jurisprudence the…
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What the French then wanted was the stability that Napoleon offered. France would not know republican government for another 72 years. This vote for a “strongman” took place after only ten years of the French Revolution. As of this writing,…
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Is some form of authoritarianism superior to democracy as a political model to hasten economic development and stability? The question derives from the economic successes of authoritarian regimes in China, Singapore among others. More…
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For the historians of the American Civil War, the "lost cause" is an ideological movement that fantasizes the Confederate cause as a heroic struggle against very great difficulties. The doctrine of this lost cause highlights alleged virtues…
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Capitalism may be defined, as Karl Marx did, by its labor system, where the workers do not own their own means of production. It may also be defined by the metaphorical ‘market’ where the buying and selling takes place, or by private…
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The Black Book of Communism (Harvard University Press, 1997) offers a conservative estimate of one hundred million innocent individuals murdered by Marxist socialists in the 20th century. To this, we can add the approximate twenty million…
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The antithesis will not replace the thesis but rather, out of the two, a new synthesis will emerge that incorporates a great deal of the old. Hegel doubted that a complete break with the past was politically possible. This failure of a…
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With his phrase “I am I and my circumstance,” Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) summarized the belief that human beings can not be isolated from their circumstances. For Ortega y Gasset individuals and societies are not…
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Patriotism is essential to liberty, because pride in our nation, and the willingness to defend it, form the basis of national self-determination. In tandem with patriotism, nationalism has the virtue of being a strong force for unity,…
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