Category: American Culture
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The cornerstone of our democracy, of our constitution and its Bill of Rights, is the principle stated in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal and are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness … That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among…
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We have become so accustomed to the extreme polarization of our country that began in earnest during Clinton’s second term and has gone off the deep end during the past few years with the creation and ascendency of the Republican Tea Party movement, that it’s hard to remember that there was a time not that…
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As we celebrate this July 4th, the state of our republic is troubled. Two core principles of American democracy are under attack … the role of government and the democratic process. And the attack is cynically being waged under the banner of protecting our system and our rights from the power of government. As we…
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Another example of the failure of American-style capitalism appeared recently in a New York Times report. There is a generic drug, transexamic acid, which was shown in a large multi-country trial in 2010 to save the lives of hemorrhaging trauma patients by slowing their bleeding. The British and American armies began using the drug immediately…
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I think that if someone believes in the Bible as God’s word and thus infallible, then that pereson needs to treat everything in the Bible in the same manner, following all of His instructions. You can’t pick and choose which rules you want to follow and which ones you deem outmoded or not appropriate for…
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At least since the time of Christ, there has been some degree of moral opprobrium in Western culture against making money solely from the use of money. First he drove the money-changers from the temple (as well as other businesses, but the image remains a classic) and later he spoke against lending money at interest.…
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Carl Sandburg wrote a poem expressing the public’s negative attitude towards lawyers that has the arresting line, “Why does the hearse horse snicker hauling a lawyer away?” The poem was presented to us as first-year law school students at the University of Chicago as a reminder that we should be compassionate in our law practice,…
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Over the past three decades this country has experienced rapid growth in income inequality. While the incomes of those in the top 5% have increased exponentially, especially during the past decade, the inflation-adjusted income of production and non-supervisory workers has actually decreased. The 2010 census found the number of Americans living in poverty to be…
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I have not written a post for many months. The reason being that I found I was talking about the same small set of issues over and over again because that’s where we were stuck as a nation. Having nothing new to say, I said nothing. But now the time has come for the current…
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I’m referring to a recent report about the Oregon National Primate Research Center’s experiments with obese monkeys. Basically, they have created couch-potato obese monkeys on which to test various products and procedures designed to fight obesity in humans. Now, I am not categorically against using animals for research purposes. There are instances where the issue…
Preserving American Values 