Category Archives: United States

The New Constitution: comprehensive statement of principles (draft)

The original plan when we began this project was to offer the amendments individually, invite discussion, then produce a final document. The course of the process, though, has made a couple things clear. First, there needs to be a period to discuss the entire document in context, and second, while the original “Bill of Rights” approach perhaps had a certain

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Secession: it’s fun to talk about, but is it actually plausible?

Ever since FOX called Ohio for Obama last Tuesday night (touching off a near-hysterical conniption from Karl Rove), talk of secession has been rampant. Groups in all 50 states have started petitions aimed at leaving the Union, with Texas (predictably) reaching the minimum threshold of signatures first. We’ve written about secession here at S&R a good bit, with Frank Balsinger’s piece

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The most important lesson we should all learn from the 2012 election

“You idiot! Get back in there at once and sell, sell!” As we set about the process of compiling and canonizing the 2012 election post-mortem, one thing we keep hearing over and over is how utterly stunned the Romney camp was at their loss. Republicans across the board apparently expected victory – the conservative punditry seemed certain of it – and

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Elections are educational! 14 things we wouldn’t have known without Campaign 2012

Everybody seems to be so negative about campaign season. They hate the ads, they hate the mudslinging, they hate the lying, they hate the candidates. Not me – I LOVE campaign season. Why? Because it’s an opportunity to learn stuff that not only didn’t I know before, but that I’d never learn any other way.

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High noon in the garden of polite and evil: the ugly truth about “Southern hospitality” (by a guy who grew up there)

I grew up in the South. I have lived roughly 33 of my 51 years below the Mason-Dixon and past the occasional trip for business or to visit friends and relatives I shan’t be going back. The reasons are numerous, but the one I’m concerned with today involves that most sinister of myths. I’m referring, of course, to Southern hospitality. To

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USADA action against Lance Armstrong: simply unAmerican

I’m more than a little troubled by what has happened with the Lance Armstrong case. I’ll begin by saying that I don’t know if Armstrong is guilty of doping. If it were proven that he were I wouldn’t be surprised – his accomplishments are simply remarkable, and to have done it all in a sport where apparently every single participant was

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America gets divorced: crafting a separation agreement

Part two of a series. In part one, I offered an overview of why I think the time has come to partition America – shake hands, go our separate ways, and let two (at least) groups of people follow their own paths according to their very different values. Today I want to briefly tackle the hard part and present some

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It’s time for America to get a divorce

Part one of a series. This past week AlterNet published an interview with Chuck Thompson, author of Better Off Without ‘Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession. In brief, Thompson argues that the United States has become two very different countries (or perhaps that it was always two very different countries) and that perhaps the time has come to shake hands and

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Free Speech for Dummies (and Dittoheads)

Last October, country music star Hank WIlliams, Jr. made a remark about Obama and Hitler playing golf, touching off a controversy that saw ESPN end its relationship with Williams (who had been singing the Monday Night Football intro song for what seemed like 100 years). Williams reacted predictably: After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision,” he wrote.

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The Komen “reversal”: a crushing failure of America’s newsrooms

Yesterday I attempted to shed a little light on the PR crisis strategy behind the Komen Foundation’s sudden Planned Parenthood “backtracking.” Contrary to what Komen’s highly-paid PR crisis hacks and gullible headline writers at newsdesks around the nation would ask you to believe, The Susan G. Komen Foundation does NOT promise to fund Planned Parenthood in the future. They promise to let

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