Tag: Pathogens
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The Problem With Conservatives Is WHAT They Want To Conserve
I give conservatives full credit: they tell you who they are and what they want right up front. They want to conserve. The problems (always) start however with what they want to conserve. For one thing, it’s never the future. One can’t conserve what hasn’t happened yet. Even if one could, conservatives would refuse to…
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So Much For A Level Playing Field…
This morning, the SCOTUS did what everyone expected it to do: it put a stake through the heart of affirmative action. Race can no longer be a factor in deciding public or private college admissions. The supposed intention: a level playing field. Strange… a level playing field was the whole POINT of affirmative action. Affirmative…
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Fascism Is Just Another European Pathogen
European culture and military superiority didn’t conquer the Americas, European pathogens did. By the time European colonists had landed enough armed men to do actual battle with anyone, European germs had reduced the native population by as much as 90%! Armed Europeans may have thought they and their culture were superior but their superiority was…
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If Books Scare You, Actual Ideas Must Be Nightmares
Ever notice how it’s never progressives banning books? True fact: being progressive means book banning is anathema to you. Instead, progressives ban hate speech because hate speech undermines a diverse, democratic society. It is a literal assault upon others. Conservatives by contrast ban books because they hate what’s inside them – ideas and ways of…
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Know Who Loves The Unvaxxed? Pathogens!
Listening to an anti-vaxxer insist they can’t trust science because they know better can make your head explode. More often than not, these aren’t dumb people; many are highly educated and, really, very well meaning. But anti-vaxxism has gotten under their skin like a religion. Or a cult. They embrace this mania with every fiber…
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Rugged Individualists Are An American Myth
We Americans love tall tales. In a sense, our whole country IS a tall tale. It’s a story about dreams coming true. One tall tale we tell ourselves is the story of the rugged individualist. You know him – he’s the white guy with a big idea. Give him ample freedom? He’ll deliver! Who will…
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What Polio Did To My Dad
Polio has returned to America. I agree with the Washington Post: that’s a tragedy. Anti-vax mania literally is going to begin killing people. In droves. Where polio’s concerned, the past is prolog. 70% of people will survive polio just fine; they’ll experience minor symptoms if anything. But, 30% of us won’t get off so lightly.…
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Democracy Is “Use It Or Lose It”
Winston Churchill famously said “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried”. He said that after being voted out of office at the end of World War Two. Despite his cynicism (born of losing an election), he was right. Democracy is damned hard to pull off.…
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What White Guys Really Mean By “Replacement Theory” Is “We Can’t Compete”
I have to admit that when white supremacist Nazi sympathizer marched through Charlottesville back in 2017 chanting “Jews will not replace us”, I was baffled. As Jonathan Sarna (scholar of American Jewish history, modern Judaism and Israel studies at Brandeis University) points out, “Jews are barely replacing themselves, let alone the white population as a…
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Republicans & The Best Stateroom On The Titanic
Sane people can never quite grok how someone will always show up to place a million to one bet on something preposterous on the pure hope that “it could happen”. Those bets never pay off and are never going to. Republicans keep betting that the Titanic – having already hit the iceberg and begun taking…