In recent editorials, the Seattle Times editorial board and publisher have called for government aid to help save locally-owned journalism, which has suffered due to the economics of the internet, media consolidation, Wall Street predation, and, recently, the covid-19 virus. In a full-page letter to readers (Sunday, Aug 9), publisher Frank A. Blethen called for […]
Libertarianism
What real freedom includes
Dear America, universal health care is what real freedom looks like Frank Luntz tells GOP politicians to use the word freedom a lot. Unfortunately, the only freedom they really represent is for the wealthiest to get wealthier and put their boots directly on the necks of the working class, with an emphasis on people of […]
Review of Martin Nowak's Super Cooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed
How can cooperation emerge in a world of selfish individuals ruled by a Darwinian competition for survival? This is the question that Martin Nowak, Professor of Mathematics and Biology at Harvard University, discusses in Super Cooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed. Nowak and his collaborators have published a series of […]
Conservatives treat selfishness as a virtue and charity and cooperation as sins
Government and taxation are a form of cooperation and charity for those less well off.
Review of Matt Ridley's Evolution of Everything
Matt Ridley is Hereditary member of the House of Lords, and a Tory. “Viscount Ridley is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1900 for the Conservative politician Sir Matthew White Ridley, 5th Baronet, Home Secretary from 1895 to 1900. ” (source) Ridley is a climate change skeptic, has […]
Burbank: Our successes were built on contributions of others
We are approaching the Fourth of July, when we celebrate American independence and the success of the colonists’ desire to be self-ruling. The United States was the first of England’s many colonies to gain its independence, something that would not be repeated until Canada broke away nearly a century later. It’s a testament to Americans’ […]
Good summary of Koch-funded conservative attack on government
What Is the Far Right’s Endgame? A Society That Suppresses the Majority Nancy MacLean, author of an intellectual biography of James McGill Buchanan, explains how this little-known libertarian’s work is influencing modern-day politics.
How extreme is the GOP?
The Koch brothers are major donators to the GOP. As Bernie Sanders reports here: Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980: “We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.” “We favor the abolition […]