Consider, Reconsider
A Reason to Think, and Think AgainPatriotism and Keeping Oaths
I have to come clean about something. I wanted the Capitol stormed. I knew it would happen sooner or later, and I thought not soon enough. But my eagerness wasn't in 2020 from belief in conspiracies, but many years earlier for belief in Liberty. Long before people...
I Would Do It
I'm seeing too many memes railing against the idea of student debt forgiveness. Never mind the predatory nature of the system. We're supposed to tap into the supremacy of personal responsibility. But we can probably tell more about the person saying such things than...
So Tired …
I am so tired of mindless political hate and offensive hyperbole. People pretend it happened just as much (or more) under "The Former Guy" but it simply did not, the only caveat being technology allowed for much more communication that could be criticized and...
Extraterrestrials and Our Biases of Order and Randomness
Strange signals have been coming from the center of the Milky Way. Of course, we've had plenty of strange signals received by our varying apparatuses over many years -- and new ones all the time -- but this may be the first time it has not widely elicited the...
The (Real) Psychology of Sheep and Wolves
A lot of people have been called sheep lately for the alleged characteristic of unthinking compliance. It's a simple, direct way to explain away others' behavior while countering virtue signaling. This would make sense except for one thing -- that's not how sheep...
Pulling the Fire Alarm in America
I have studied the psychosocial phenomenon of brainwashing for many years, and it is a blood cousin to something I also research and write about -- ideological fanaticism. It took a while to see the pattern before me in our own nation, but now that I do, it's...
Examining Violence by Protesters … I Mean Sports Fans
Let's get my one-paragraph soapbox out of the way: I used to find it intolerable that people don't understand or accept that protest can be both peaceful and unpeaceful. After all, it may be peaceful all day across one or more cities, but then things seem to always...
A Moral Lens on Protests and Reform
TEACHERS. LAWYERS. MOTHERS. JOURNALISTS. MEDICS. VETERANS. The equivalent of Federal SWAT teams have been tear-gassing and "arresting" them, even breaking international standards for WAR by destroying medical supplies used to combat their unlawful use of chemical...
A Badge-Bully’s Bill of Rights
In what is possibly the most counter-productive proposal under a head-shaking euphemism of police "reform", a county Sherriff is urging lawmakers to double down on the very things people are trying to fix. Instead of listening to the community to understand why law...
Our Unrealistic Expectations of Police
Someone asked what would have happened on 9-11 if the police had been "defunded". The assumption is a worse disaster, and they may be right. There were a number of heroes in blue that fateful day in Manhattan when the towers were hit, and we should be grateful for...
Whose Lives Matter, Again?
When the "Black Lives Matter" (BLM) movement started in 2013, there were conflicting reactions, especially among the "White" community. There were some negative views based on the perception of the group that started it. The message was pointed, as could be expected....
Born Into, Not Earned
{Facebook post by Sarah Bonse reprinted here with permission.} I was born into a world I did not "earn". Born to parents who have navigated their own worlds and struggles to bring me into my own. From birth I have enjoyed privileges so freely given, they seemed...
Protests: The Good Cop’s Salvation
If you learn anything from Gandhi and Dr. King, et alia, it's that the power of peaceful protest is to demoralize those who are doing violence against them. Only the most psychopathic souls can keep abusing people day after day, even if they are ordered to and have...
No Justification for Harm
If someone is hurt in the course of police action, it's not always the police's fault. But when it is, making it about the rap sheet of the victim or what they may have done to not comply or "provoke" law enforcement is irrelevant. The Police hold the badges and guns....
I Thought I Was the Freedom Fighter
I grew to believe over my lifetime, that as Americans, our liberties have been chipped away at for generations and I often felt I was the rare crackpot that noticed or cared. There are countless laws and permits for every occasion, and I've written and spoken out on...
The Pitiable Habitual Conspiriacts
There are many authentic conspiracies, and many we don't even know about. The problem is that thanks to the Internet there are a THOUSAND TIMES more fake ones, and their prevalence is based on psychological stickiness, not fact. The real ones probably won't even be...
The Quarantine of Our Time
I don't know what people a hundred years will say about COVID-19. People only talk about the death tolls of the Spanish Flu a hundred years ago. But in the middle of this, I see life coming into focus as a society like never before. We're rationing our attention onto...