Browsed by
Category: law

Folkraed: A New Approach to Government – The Second Problem With the Way Things Are: Bad Voters

Folkraed: A New Approach to Government – The Second Problem With the Way Things Are: Bad Voters

Comments 0 Comment

Last post we talked about problems with our politicians, but most voters aren’t any better. In fact, they’re often worse. Most politicians at least know something about the major issues of the day; most voters don’t. Economists say that voters’ ignorance is rational: because each persons’ vote has such a small marginal impact on an election result, it doesn’t make sense to spend much time learning about the candidates or issues. What makes sense for each voter to do on…

Read More Read More

Folkraed: A New Approach to Government – Introduction

Folkraed: A New Approach to Government – Introduction

Comments 0 Comment

Many of us feel like something is going wrong. We feel a deep and growing unease we are moving in the wrong direction, that we’re becoming strangers in our own country. This series of blog posts is an extended essay that explains what is going wrong in the United States and what we can do about it. But first you must realize that the solution won’t come from going back to the way things were. The past is behind us….

Read More Read More

The Bridges of Hammon and Sophrete

The Bridges of Hammon and Sophrete

Comments 0 Comment

Two cities, each very distant from the other, sat on the same side of a great river. The river was wide and deep, with a powerful and fast current. Crossing the river was dangerous and difficult, but those few who crossed returned with stories of an unknown country full of mysterious wonders. The first city was named Hammon, and the second was called Sophrete. In Hammon, few citizens had ever crossed the river. Everyone generally agreed that reaching the other…

Read More Read More

The problem with elections

The problem with elections

Comments 1 comment

Even though the 2012 presidential elections are still over a year away, the news is already saturated with stories about the Republican candidates campaigning. We all take for granted that democracy is the ideal system of government, and that our system of elections is an ideal way to select our country’s leaders. But is it? Being a politician requires two completely different skill sets: campaigning skills and governing skills. The two skills sets are very different from one another. A…

Read More Read More

Judging by appearances: sometimes it works

Judging by appearances: sometimes it works

Comments 3 comments

We’ve all heard that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But a recent psychology study indicates that we may be able to make accurate judgments about certain aspects of people’s character “after minimal exposure to [their] physical appearance.” The study is titled “The Accuracy of Inferences About Criminality Based on Facial Appearance”1 and was performed by Jeffrey M. Valla, Stephen J. Ceci, and Wendy M. Williams of Cornell University and published in the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and…

Read More Read More

What If Everyone Paid the Same Taxes as You?

What If Everyone Paid the Same Taxes as You?

Comments 1 comment

The U.S. government has provided an interesting tool1 that tries to show you where your tax dollars are spent. You just put in the amount of Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes you paid, and it shows how much of that money will go to different government programs and expenditures. Over at Econlog Arnold Kling points out2 that for most of us, the calculator makes it look like most we get a bargain in government programs and benefits for a…

Read More Read More

Do you really have a right to that?

Do you really have a right to that?

Comments 1 comment

Do we have a right to receive an education in the same way that we have a right to free speech? Do we have a right to healthcare in the same way that we have a right to own property? We often use the word “right” without thinking much about what the word actually means and without considering what the government is obligated to do about our rights. There are actually two very different conceptions of rights, and these two…

Read More Read More