Tag Archives: democracy

I’ve written an opinion piece that appears in today’s Regina Leader-Post. The piece argues that the Saskatchewan government shouldn’t brag about the province’s low-tax climate (which it recently did). Rather, I argue that taxes serve important functions. The link to the opinion piece is here. Nick Falvo is a Calgary-based research consultant with a PhD in Public Policy. He has academic affiliation at both Carleton University and Case Western Reserve University, and is...

I’ve written an opinion piece that appears in today’s Regina Leader-Post. The piece argues that the Saskatchewan government shouldn’t brag about the province’s low-tax climate (which it recently did). Rather, I argue that taxes serve important functions. The link to the opinion piece is here. Enjoy and share:

Contemporary liberals are temperamentally conservative — and what they want to conserve is a morally bankrupt political order.,,, A characteristic of neoliberalism? Maybe I was predisposed to democratic socialism; I always considered myself to be “on the Left,” even as a teenager. In any case, it’s become clear in retrospect that watching the liberal class respond to events over the past decade has been a powerful stimulus in my politicization. Which is to say, I didn’t acquire radical...

There have been windows in history when the people have had enough abuse and so rise up in revolt. The American and French revolutions come to mind as does 1848. Perhaps we are experiencing something like that at the present time, a revolt against the pressure to conform to globalist values that have been embraced to their benefit by the elites and the establishment in much of the world. It could well become a hard fought and sometimes bloody conflict but its outcome will shape the next...

A new study reveals how the wealthy engage in ‘stealth politics’: quietly advancing unpopular, inequality-exacerbating, highly conservative policies... How can this be so? If it is true, why aren’t voters aware and angry about it?The answer is simple: billionaires who favor unpopular, ultraconservative economic policies, and work actively to advance them (that is, most politically active billionaires) stay almost entirely silent about those issues in public. This is a deliberate choice....

When elections don't go the way the US wants. On Monday, the United States called the election of leaders and parliamentarians in the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk a “farce,” according to a spokeswoman for the US State Department, Heather Nauert. On Sunday the two self-proclaimed people’s republics held elections for leaders and parliamentarians. Turnout in Donetsk reached 80.1% of voters, while in Lugansk the number was 77%, according to the central...

The thing that almost all of the framers really agreed on is that a broad franchise for electing representatives makes things too responsive to the popular will; and that even where the franchise is appropriately, in their view, restricted to white men with sufficient property, with even more property required for standing for office, a legislature unchecked by a more elite upper house still makes things too responsive. New ideas were out there. They urged not direct democracy but access to...

SRW come up with a conclusion similar to Aristotle's. Democracy can only work if it has stochastic basis that can't be gamed.InterfluidityContinuous electionsSteve Randy Waldman

Frank Li begins up many interesting points and, in my view, gets a lot right in this post. It is worth considering in that it is comparison of systems by a person that knows both the Chinese and American. But Li omits some of the key Western thinking about the philosophical basis of liberalism, which distinguishes individuality from personhood.  A dilemma arises between individuality and personhood. On one hand, individuality is unique and varied and all individuals are clearly not...

Is there a Deep State in our western liberal democracies? If so, is it a conspiracy or something more ‘interesting’ than that? These are questions that the Left has been traditionally engaged with, especially when facing undercover campaigns to prevent progressives from winning power or, on occasion, to unseat or destabilise left-wing governments. However, more recently, the Alt-Right has begun waging a war of words against the Deep State, with Donald Trump and his supporters doing so most...