A 1969 photo of political theorist and scholar Hannah Arendt. AP Photo Hannah Arendt, a political theorist, fled Germany during Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and later wrote about ‘the banality of evil.’ Her work has recently become a best-seller. Here’s why. By Dr. Kathleen B. Jones / 03.14.2017 Professor Emerita of Women’s Studies San Diego State University In the weeks since[…]
However you read The Prince, it is a reminder that the elementary condition of good government is effective government. By Dr. Stein Ringen / 03.04.2018 Professor of Sociology and Social Policy University of Oxford Is Machiavelli relevant today? Relevant, perhaps, but a democrat? Was he not the author of a book of tyranny? Perhaps not quite.[…]
Tokyoites watch Hideo Nomo pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers at Sony Plaza on June 30, 1995. Shizuo Kambayashi/AP Photo By Dr. Steven Wisensale / 03.27.2018 Professor of Public Policy University of Connecticut On Feb. 9, 2001, an American submarine, the USS Greenville, surfaced beneath the Ehime Maru, a Japanese ship filled with high school students[…]
The 33rd President of the United States of America, statesman Harry S Truman (1884 – 1972), waving from a train. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 03.17.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief 1 – Elections 1.1 – Types of Elections From the broad and general to the small and local, elections are[…]
Gordon County Courthouse in Calhoun, GA / Photo by Brent Moore, Creative Commons Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 03.12.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief The requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt has this vital role in our criminal procedure for cogent reasons. The accused, during a criminal prosecution, has at stake interests of immense importance,[…]
President Lyndon Johnson signs a gun-control law in 1968—passed with the N.R.A / Public Domain Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 03.09.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief 1 – Introduction 1.1 – Constitutional Right to Petition the Government The Supreme Court has ruled that petitioning the government by way of lobbying is protected by the Constitution as[…]
Photo by Stephen Melkisthenian, Flickr, Creative Commons Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 03.06.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief 1 – Defining Public Opinion 1.1 – Introduction Voter Poll: Voter polling questionnaire on display at the Smithsonian Institution Public opinion or Political opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public[…]
Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 02.25.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief 1 – Civil Liberties and the Bill of Rights 1.1 – The Bill of Rights 1.1.1 – Overview The Bill of Rights of the United States of American: The United States Bill of Rights, which are the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, and[…]
Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief 1 – Federalism in the Constitution 1.1 – Introduction Federalism is the system of government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units. It is based upon democratic rules and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between[…]
A map of United Nations member states at the end of 1945. Light blue are member states, Dark blue are colonies of member states, grey are non-member states. / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Tilman Lüdke / 03.06.2012 Senior Researcher Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institut Abstract Between roughly 1880 and 1945, various macro-nationalistic ideologies appeared on the socio-political scene of the world.[…]
What exactly is outrage? Philip Pilosian/Shutterstock By Dr. Justin Tosi and Dr. Brandon Warmke / 06.19.2017 Tosi: Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer, University of Michigan Warmke: Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University Many Americans are morally outraged that U.S. President Donald Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey, who had been investigating possible links between[…]
By Steve Barry / 11.10.2011 I have previously written on the topic of Dominionism and then subsequently on a specific “brand” of Dominionism in the past. After reading an interview between Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches and Anthea Butler of the University of Pennsylvania called Beyond Alarmism and Denial in the Dominionism Debate I felt[…]
Elements of the Acropolis are thought to have been provided for through the public service of liturgy. / Photo by Francesco Bandarin/UNESCO By Dominic Frisby / 06.02.2017 Imagine a progressive tax – in other words, a tax that falls on those most able to pay; a tax that results in the rich paying – quite[…]
Simone de Beauvoir in Paris in 1949. / Photo from Elliot Erwitt, Magnum By Dr. Skye C. Cleary / 03.10.2017 Lecturer Columbia University, City College of New York Simone de Beauvoir is rightly best known for declaring: ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.’ A less well-known facet of her philosophy, particularly relevant today, is[…]
The SLECO (Socialism, Liberalism, Conservatism and Ecology) chart is a proposed alternative to the Nolan Chart and the Hans Slomp projection of the European political spectrum. It should be able to capture more political schools. / Ben Burgers, Wikimedia Commons By Dr. T.M. Sell / 11.30.2014 Pacific Northwest Political Science Association Introduction People sometimes develop[…]
A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry on May 10, 2017, shows U.S. President Donald J. Trump (C) speaking with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L) and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak during a meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C. (HO / AFP/Getty Images) Senate Minority Leader Chuck[…]
By Shaun Mullen / 05.12.2017 Hey, who’s that guy hiding behind a hedge on the White House grounds? Why it’s press secretary Sean Spicer, who became so flummoxed over the “unexpected” blowback from the summary execution of FBI Director James Comey that he hid from reporters the other night rather than answer their questions, eventually[…]
“By even considering this discriminatory order he has broken his promise to be a president for all Americans,” says Human Rights Campaign. (Photo: @HRC) ‘Nothing could be more un-American’ than order protecting those with a religious objection to same-sex marriage, transgender people, and reproductive rights. By Deirdre Fulton / 05.03.2017 Rights groups protested outside the[…]
Why do so many state constitutions have provisions precluding funding for religious schools? Phil Roeder, CC BY By Dr. Frank S. Ravitch / 05.02.2017 Professor of Law and Walter H. Stowers Chair of Law and Religion Michigan State University The United States Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case from Missouri that could[…]
By Dr. Timothy O. Lenz and Dr. Mirya Holman / 08.16.2013 Lenz: Professor of Political Science Holman: Assistant Professor of Political Science Florida Atlantic University The Constitution and Constitutional Government We are under a Constitution but the Constitution is what the Court says it is. – Charles Evans Hughes For as in absolute governments[…]
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions cheers on the crowd during a rally for then President-elect Trump in Mobile, Alabama, in December of 2016. (Photo: Brynn Anderson/AP) Jeff Sessions offers to recuse himself from investigations into Russian election meddling after damning Washington Post report By Lauren McCauley / 03.02.2017 Democratic leaders are calling for the resignation[…]
Photo by Mic Smith / AP By Dr. C.J. Atkins / 02.17.2017 People’s World Opinion Editor “Enemies of the people.” That’s how President Donald Trump describes journalists who offer anything but Breitbart-style fawning coverage of him and his administration. He first tweeted out the epithet a couple of weeks ago, adding it to his stockpile[…]
By Michael Gerson / 02.19.2017 Washington Post Columnist In early January, Speaker Paul Ryan met on the issue of tax reform with a delegation from the president-elect. Attending were future chief strategist and senior counselor Stephen Bannon, future Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, future senior adviser Jared Kushner, future counselor Kellyanne Conway and future[…]
White House / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration By Louisa Hotson / 08.09.2016 PhD Candidate in Political Science London School of Economics and Political Science University of Oxford Just like cigarettes and air travel, the social sciences were much more glamorous in the 1960s than they are today. In the 1960s social science faculties[…]
Cagle Cartoons By Dick Polman / 02.17.2017 Writer in Residence, Political Columnist University of Pennsylvania To best understand the Republican mentality on Capitol Hill – specifically, their disgraceful refusal to probe the Trump-Russia national security scandal with even a scintilla of the energy they devoted to Benghazi – you need only read what Senator Rand[…]
The New Thought movement left behind an important legacy. Wesley Nitsckie By Dr. Christopher H. Evans / 02.15.2017 Professor of the History of Christianity Boston University President Donald Trump embraces several political stances important to his conservative evangelical base. This includes support for “religious liberty” legislation and exempting evangelicals from laws upholding lesbian, gay, transgender[…]
A protest in New York’s Washington Square Park days after Donald Trump’s election. Muhammed Muheisen/AP By Dr. Roxanne Donovan / 02.13.2017 Professor of Psychology and Interdisciplinary Studies Kennesaw State University “This can’t be happening.” “I feel like throwing up.” “I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning.” “Life is going to get[…]
By Wendy Gittleson / 02.10.2017 Donald Trump has no real platform other than be afraid, be very afraid. In Trump’s imaginary world, we are all about to be wiped out by terrorists, but not the gun toting right-wing Trump follower type. No, we’re all about to be killed by green card holding people from countries[…]
Sarah Palin “represents the descent of politics,” wrote the Ottawa Citizen‘s Andrew Cohen. “We see today a direct line from Palin to Trump. Politically, Trump is Palin’s child.” (Photo: AP) ‘If the Captain of Chaos wants to disrupt everything—including resetting relations with little ol’ Canada—Palin would be the one to break the china’ By Lauren[…]
When one undertakes to administer justice, it must be with an even hand, and by rule; what is done for one, must be done for everyone in equal degree. Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1803 Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 02.06.2017 Brewminate Editor-in-Chief Ruby Bridges, 1960. Gelatin silver print. New York World-Telegram and Sun[…]