In this post, we dive deep into the heart of American political tradition by presenting a complete collection of first presidential inaugural address speeches that have shaped the United States from its inception to the present day. Each speech, a time capsule of its era, is summarized up front (with a link to the full […]
Election denialism, the refusal to accept credible election outcomes, has significantly impacted U.S. history, especially in recent years. This phenomenon is not entirely new; election denial has roots that stretch back through various periods of American history. However, its prevalence and intensity have surged in the contemporary digital and political landscape, influencing public trust, political […]
Critical thinking is a disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. It involves questioning ideas and assumptions rather than accepting them at face value. It requires curiosity, skepticism, and humility to […]
The Founders meant for the republic to be agile in philosophy — always changing to meet the new demands of the next generations. They meant for us to be self-governing, and empowered to create policy for problem-solving in new eras they themselves could not even conceive of. Thomas Jefferson wrote forewarningly of the Dead Hand […]
The concept of the Middle Way is thousands of years old — making it a piece of deep insight that has stood the test of time. It refers to a worldview or consistent practice of hewing towards the more moderate approach, tactic, behavior, or course of action.
Let’s not forget the ideals that started us on this American journey in 1776, with the Declaration of Independence written by the great communicator Thomas Jefferson:
I think it’s key to do the work to craft and calibrate your own personal set of ethics. Read and borrow widely from many fields from philosophy to business to science to politics, but do not take any store-bought ideology from off the shelf. Customize it at the very least — lest you yoke your […]
Twin visions were there at the start and here they still remain — we’ve been oscillating around the same set of unresolved issues for centuries, like a pair of neutron stars. There have always been two Americas: one egalitarian and Enlightened, patterned after Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin; and one haughty and zero-sum like John […]
The Founders knew acutely the pains of centuries of religious warfare in modern Europe and resoundingly did not want that for their new nation. Many of them moreover knew religious persecution intimately — some whose families fled the Church of England for fear of being imprisoned, burned at the stake, or worse. Is America a […]
The right wing is full of contradictions — a defining trait, almost. Chief among them is this bit of cognitive dissonance: You can’t have this both ways, philosophically speaking. The entire concept of individual liberty (hint: it’s right there in the name!) is a core insight of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment Inspired the United States […]
The French philosopher and mathematician Marquis de Condorcet published the Jury Theorem in a 1785 essay, providing a theoretical foundation for democracy. Although it may be somewhat oversimplified, the tool has been useful in fields apart from political science as well, from medical diagnosis to machine learning. The Condorcet Jury Theorem assumes a group is […]
A network of exceedingly wealthy individuals and organizations have channeled their vast fortunes into influencing American politics, policy, and public opinion — they’ve formed a wealth cult. And they’ve leveraged that cult and its considerable fortune to influence and in many ways dramatically transform American politics. The term “dark money” refers to political spending meant […]