Responsibility and Accountability Part 4: The Judiciary and Accountability
This is Part 4 of a series on accountability and responsibility. As the graphic shows, the two should work together, but can but can get jammed. But often the two are divorced, or at least separated, in this case, by…
Truth is the First Casualty of…Unchecked Power
Three years after the US’s catastrophic run from Afghanistan, most Americans have no clue what happened. No one has stood up and taken responsibility. Five years after the killings that triggered Black Lives Matter (BLM) most Americans do not really…
The Tragedy of the Commons: The Political Commons
I first came across the problem (tragedy) of the commons in a political science course in grad school. We read a remarkable work by Elinor Ostrom about the problem. Her work both resonated with me and left me looking for…
Can a Free Republic be a Superpower: Part 4 Toxic Debt
Toxic Debt threatens not only the ability to be a superpower, but our entire way of life. When I was in Bosnia right after the 911 attacks, many of our soldiers said this could never happen in the US. I…
Deterrence and the Interagency Process, Part 2: Interagency
“The evolution of the interagency process parallels Americas [sic] purposeful adaptation to changing global realities of the last five decades. But it is not an orderly evolution because of serious structural and cultural impediments, such as discontinuities from one administration…
Operant Conditioning and Conditional Expectations and Change
In Operant Conditioning, Path Dependency and Societal Revolution, Part 2, I brought in the concept of expectation management, but did not develop it too much. This post looks at it in more detail and how it relates to and reinforces…
Defending The Republic, Part 1: Scenarios
Over the last year, I’ve been thinking, researching, and writing (Corporatism Part 1, Part 2; Thoughts on Ukraine, Part 7: The Joint Corporatist Scenario, among others) a lot about corporatism. I’ve been searching for a reason why corporations are doing…
Virginia Board of Education: Transgender Policy
This blog builds on Critical Thinking and Policy Development and Analysis, Critical Thinking: Logic and Rationality, Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Key Components and Dimensions, Critical Thinking: Bounded Rationality and Time, Critical Thinking: Credence and Veracity, and A Solutions-Based Approach…
Critical Thinking and Policy: The Wars on Drugs and Poverty
In an effective government, the first rule of policy is to set goals and the implementing processes to accomplish them. Politicians and the bureaucracy, however, run the government. The first rule of politicians is to get re-elected. The first rule…
Critical Thinking, Policy and Food and Drug Quality
We are in the midst of several epidemics. The source, or at least an enabling factor for some of them, is obesity. Obesity is an epidemic as well as shown in the figure above. But there are other problems with…
