Tag: politics

Lessons from History? — L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website

Once upon a time, I was the staff director of a Congressman’s office. He was a Republican. At that time, the Democrats held an overwhelming majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. 354 more words

via Lessons from History? — L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website

I woke up to the longest day of the year (summer solstice). I read through Modesitt’s latest blog post, which turned my longest day into perhaps my most frustrating one? Are we truly doomed to repeat history because we choose to ignore it?

I’m old enough to have seen the swing of politics from one abusive majority to another abusive majority of a different party, but most Americans either haven’t lived long enough to see it, don’t care so long as “their” party prevails, or have no idea what I’m talking about.

History would suggest that this kind of situation, unless defused, will only get worse. The only question may be whether we’re looking at a repeat of 1968 or 1861.

Do we really want another bloody brutal Civil War?

I don’t.

But I am not a Republican nor a Democrat and I voluntarily pursue lessons from history because I don’t wish to ‘rinse and repeat’ the mistakes of more predecessors.

I can only hope I’m not alone.

 

On Human Nature and Political Ideologies

This paragraph in the “Human Nature” chapter of my Introduction to Philosophy textbook speared me, considering the turmoil before, during and continuing after our most recent elections.  It’s a long paragraph so bear with me.  I’ll split it at points to add more white space for emphasis and where my mind flipped thoughts from ‘right’ to ‘left’ instead of its usual on-edge position:

Your perception of human nature determines even how you think we should set up our society. Ask yourself this, for example: Should our society be based on capitalism or socialism?

Continue reading “On Human Nature and Political Ideologies”

D.W.M.

The Misogyny Card – http://www.lemodesittjr.com/2016/09/13/the-misogyny-card/

My husband and I have been arguing about presidential candidate voting most of this week.  I will not burden you with the details as I find it rude to discuss religion and politics in public. I can’t wait for this torture, I mean election season, to be over.

I found Modesitt’s blog post today struck a nerve. And I recently heard him in person declaring what I already knew to be true: that nearly all political campaigning and maneuvering is based on fear.  

Food for thought.

Thoughts on the Eye in the Sky

I watched Eye in the Sky several weeks ago and made sure my dad also watched it.  We (my ad and I) had to wait to discuss the movie with my uncle, a retired Air Force Colonel, until had a chance to watch the movie.  If you have not watched this movie, I highly recommend it.

My questions to him included the micromanagement of the civilian government(s) during the operation; the incredible moral dilemma placed upon the drone pilot; the portrayal of the American government as being the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ sort; and of course the excellent closing remarks made by the now deceased Alan Rickman to his civilian government overseer.

“Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.”

Movie Review: Eye in the Sky, directed by Gavin Hood Four Stars “Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.” Alan Rickman’s last movie investigates waging war in the twenty-first century. The movie centers on the complexity and mortal dilemmas surrounding using drones as remote killing weapons. Helen Mirren stars, […]

via Movie Review: Eye in the Sky, directed by Gavin Hood (Four Stars) — As a Matter of Fancy

The Self-Made Myth — L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

I always savor the wisdom of Modesitt and I hope you don’t mind that I occasionally want to spread it around a bit with a reblog post here:

It’s always baffled me how so many successful, usually white, usually male, individuals claim that they alone were close to solely responsible for their success, discounting or ignoring so many factors that contributed to that success. One factor that’s so often discounted is simply the fact that it’s easier to take risks if you’ll still…

via The Self-Made Myth — L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website

Compromise is Not a Dirty Word

Outsiders – http://www.lemodesittjr.com/2015/10/13/outsiders/

A good quote from Modesitt’s post (click link above):

“… without all the social and physical ‘infrastructure’ provided by American society and government, few if any of those successes would have been possible. Just having clean water and decent sanitation provides a great advantage. Almost half the world doesn’t have one or the other.”

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

Modesitt on the Cruelty of Absolute Certainty

Quotable excerpt from middle of Modesitt’s blog posting:

The consequences of such absolutist beliefs have always been deadly, and usually terrifying, and that hasn’t changed, either. That was a lesson the Founding Fathers understood, and understood well. Because they didn’t want an absolutist government, they did their best to come up with a system that required a certain amount of compromise to work.

Well… now no one wants to compromise, and guess what… the system doesn’t work. What about that, exactly, is so hard to understand?

But I will have to part ways with some of his thinking, at least as he sums it up in the last paragraph.  I do agree that driving at high speeds, while drinking, texting, sleepy, distracted, etc. is a very bad thing, and in most of the United States is illegal, I can’t agree with his stance on guns.  A gun is a tool and won’t fire itself.  Any harm done by a gun (or any other weapon or bomb or poison or … you get the picture) falls clearly on the person wielding said weapon.

http://www.lemodesittjr.com/2014/11/25/the-cruelty-of-absolute-certainty-the-arrogance-of-the-true-believer/

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

Why the federal court record system PACER is so broken, and how to fix it — Tech News and Analysis

http://gigaom.com/2014/08/27/why-the-federal-court-record-system-pacer-is-so-broken-and-how-to-fix-it/

So what happened? Why has the federal courts’ IT system stagnated despite more money? The answer, unsurprisingly, is that the money has gone elsewhere.

Bureaucracies and budgets … if there is money unspent in one at the end of the year …

The bottom line is that fixing PACER is not a technological challenge, but a political one, and technology has yet to solve the problem of getting the politically powerful to focus on the right things at the same time.

I admin a lot of weird one-off applications where I work.  Last week, PACER dropped into my lap as a direct result of the upgrade mentioned in the article above. I can attest to the very dated interface. In fact I probably hadn’t seen PACER in over a decade and it looked and acted just as it did back then. I have never understood how this system is allowed to charge anyone fees because all the information it contains is public information. Compare to NASA which makes an incredible amount of information available for everyone – researchers and citizens – easily accessible and free.