"Words that make actions speak louder."
Terrance’s last post heroically set out and engaged the two dominant scenarios about the American future that progressives seem to be wrestling with right now. These two scenarios might be described as: 1) Permanent Decline — Due to Americans’ native hyperindividualism, political apathy, and overweening willingness to accept personal blame for their country’s failures, the […]
Terrance Heath kicked off our conversation by invoking Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation that change comes about as a “revolution of expectations.” Since how people greet and adapt to transformative change is a subject I’m rather passionate about, I’d like to riff on this a bit. De Tocqueville was absolutely right in his observation that people […]
My fictitious conservative uncle—let’s call him Uncle Con—is at it again. “Americans don’t need socialized medicine!” he bellows, doing his very best Rush Limbaugh impression—which pretty much lets you know where this particular set of talking points came from. (When he whines, you know he’s been listening to Bill O’Reilly. If he comes across willfully […]
Progressives around the country can breathe a little easier today: James Adkisson has been sentenced to life behind bars for the deaths of Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger, the Unitarian Universalist martyrs who died during his assault on their church in Knoxville, Tenn., last July. Photo: J. Miles Cary, Knoxville News Many of us intuited […]
“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized.” — Daniel Burnham, American architect Most progressives understand by now that the battle over the stimulus is, at heart, a philosophical debate over whether we’re going to continue with 30 years of failed conservative economic policies, […]
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose: It may perhaps be asked what need there is of reasoning or proof to illustrate a position which is not either controverted or doubted, to which the understandings and feelings of all classes of men assent, and which in substance is admitted by the opponents as well […]
They keep using those words. It turns out that they don’t mean what we think they mean. On Thursday night, for the first time since 9/11, I actually sat down and watched George Bush speak. (At this late date, I figured there was absolutely nothing the man could say that could quench the deep satisfaction […]