Big Government NOT Linked to Greater Corruption

You hear it all the time: “Big government is the problem.” “We need to reduce the size of the government if we want to eliminate corruption.” As it turns out, just because the government grows in size doesn’t mean that corruption will grow along with it. From a journal article published last year [Emphasis added]: This study’s …

Listen — Let It Swirl Around Your Head, Then Form Your Opinion

In the past two weeks, I’ve seen a lot of people make a lot of different arguments about why they support/oppose intervening in Syria. Of all the arguments I’ve heard, the ones that irritate me the most: “I’m a Democrat/liberal and Pres. Obama thinks we should go to Syria, so I think we have to …

Political Implications of the SCOTUS Decision on the Voting Rights Act

More than a week ago, the Supreme Court of the United States rendered a decision on a case that had implications for the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The Court ruled that the formula from Section 4 of the VRA was unconstitutional. The decision has certainly enraged liberals and the political left as is clear in …

If Cats and Dogs Could Vote, Which Party Would They Vote For?

The other day I was playing with my dog and I said something about moving ‘to the left.’ Naturally, my wife recalled the Beyoncé song, “To The Left.” However, since I spend a lot of time watching and thinking about politics, my first thought was that our dog was moving “to the left” — politically. That …

You Need To Seek Out Ideas and Opinions That Are Different From Your Beliefs

[Editor’s Note: This post’s title was changed on September 16th from “if you’re a conservative, tell me which liberals you read: if you’re a liberal, tell me which conservatives you read.”] I was born and raised in Canada and really didn’t start paying attention to politics until I moved to the US, so most of …

A Rose By Any Other Name: Labels for Political Ideologies and Parties

I was watching some old episodes of The West Wing on the weekend and I came across two scenes that I think epitomize part of the problem with politics today. Both scenes are from Season 2 and the first one is of a Republican lawyer, Ainsley Hayes, speaking with two other Republicans about how the …

Should We Have Seen This Coming?

While history is made everyday, in the 2010 United States midterm elections, there was at least a bit of foreshadowing. During these elections, the net gain/loss of house seats was the highest it has been since 1938 – when FDR was President. Much of the ink printed around the midterm elections was focused on the …