Category Archives: Political Theory

Why Democracy Itself Will Come Into Question

Idea**:  In the next five years in the US, democracy itself will come into question. Argument:  Democracy requires four things to support the central concept that every vote be treated equally.  Each of these four premises has individually been questioned, … Continue reading

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Plato and the Timing of the Jobs Speech

The recent controversy about the timing of the president’s job speech brings to mind Plato’s theory of knowledge versus mere opinion. Continue reading

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The New “New Divide”: Rights vs. Reform

In a republic, elections are especially important as the way in which competing interest groups have a venue and a voice. But there are some divisions that elections and political debate cannot bridge. In those cases, government has used two tools to remedy the divide: reform of conditions, such as labor laws, and expansion of rights, such as in civil rights gains. But the current divide between those who benefit from the public sector and those who fund it is an especially challenging divide, because these two tools, rights and reform, are not available to the government since each side in the debate has claimed one of those tools for itself. Continue reading

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