Category Archives: conservatives

Liberals vs. Progressives; What’s the Difference?

Posted on Friday 17 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Pamela Paul in NYT distinguishes progressive from liberals; the answer is, the former are driving cancel culture from the left; How I’ve changed my mind about threats from the right, vs. those from the left; Jerry Coyne, who follows university … Continue reading →

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Decency, Bias, and Superstition

Posted on Thursday 16 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Over and over, Trump and his team, unable to win arguments on the facts, resort to ad hominem — character assassination; The contrast between conservative insistence on women taking a child to term, rather than abortion, with the mild inconvenience … Continue reading →

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Real Conspiracy Theories and Fake Crises

Posted on Wednesday 15 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Benjamin Bradford at CFI about how conspiracy theorists shrug about real conspiracy theories; Big Think on conspiracy theories about places claimed not to exist; Robert Reich on the fake crises Republicans use to distract from real problems. CFI, Benjamin Bradford, … Continue reading →

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Witnessing History: When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them

Posted on Tuesday 14 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

It’s difficult to keep a perspective on the news, which may well be history happening in front of our eyes, or may simply consist of passing trends. There are always passing trends. In the long term, history shows that most … Continue reading →

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Disconnects about the Economy

Posted on Monday 13 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

There have been several articles recently about how, and why, economists think the economy is doing just fine, while ordinary people (voters) don’t. Why would this be? Are these ordinary people simply poisoned by partisan propaganda? Or is it something … Continue reading →

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The Deep State, or, Jonathan Rauch, THE CONSTITUTION OF KNOWLEDGE, part 3

Posted on Saturday 11 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve said the last two posts that I would quote the passages of Rauch’s book in which he describes what he considers to be the components of the “reality-based community.” And how it struck me that some of these components … Continue reading →

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Jonathan Rauch, THE CONSTITUTION OF KNOWLEDGE, part 2

Posted on Friday 10 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Yesterday I gave a general overview of this book, and made a few specific comments. Today I’m going to read through my notes again, and highlight some more specific comments, and maybe quotes. Like this summary, at the end. The … Continue reading →

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Jonathan Rauch, THE CONSTITUTION OF KNOWLEDGE, part 1

Posted on Thursday 9 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: “A Defense of Truth”. Brookings, 2021. 266pp of text, plus notes and index, total 305pp. This is one of two books I’ve read recently, following the Lee McIntyre book that I posted about two days ago, that dovetail in … Continue reading →

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Conservative Epistemology

Posted on Monday 6 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

The core belief that explains extremism on the right; Peter Wehner on how Republicans have chosen nihilism; My wondering what the deep explanation is for what’s happened on the right; Short items about GOP tax cheats, Trump’s latest outrageous lies, … Continue reading →

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Media, Mystics, and Two Key Republican Obsessions

Posted on Friday 3 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Two curious items from Facebook, about learning new media, and scientists as “mystics”; Three items, one by Paul Krugman, about the Republicans’ naked obsession with benefiting the ultra-wealthy; Three items, or maybe four, about Republican obsession with other people’s sex … Continue reading →

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