Key Events and People Driving the American Revolution
This short piece fills in the gaps tradition education, even when it teaches the founding of the American Republic, leaves out the buildup to the revolution. It is important because the revolution is based on the cultural and philosophical concepts…
Educating Citizens versus Sheep, Part 4: Education Framework
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana I developed this framework during Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series and work I did earlier on serious games. If government funds…
Educating Sheep Versus Citizens: Part 1
This blog series will develop a conceptual framework to assess how effectively schools prepare graduates for their responsibilities as citizens in a free republic. This first part will look at an overall framework that compares educating sheep versus educating…
The Constitution and the Soldier
Every member of the US Armed Forces takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But as the Annenberg survey (Annenberg 2024, Annenberg 2023 ) reports, many Americans have…
Comparative Politics and Political Change: what Works and Why?
“A Republic, if you can keep it.” Bejamin Franklin. When I was in graduate school, I took a course on comparative political systems. The course readings seemed to favor the parliamentary system, and I took a bit of an…
Politics and Candidate Types
Remember back to the distant past of 1991? The US had just won the Gulf War and President George H. W. Bush was riding high and looked unbeatable. None of the leading Democrats wanted to run against him and risk…
Our Atavistic Fears
When I sit in my garden office, I often smile at the squirrels, rabbits, and birds as they move about eating and socializing. But on the times that I see the local black snake, I cringe a bit. Now,…
Responsibility and Accountability Part 5: Voter Responsibility and Accountability
This is Part 5 of a series on accountability and responsibility. This part looks at the voters and to whom they are accountable. As the graphic from My Comic Shop shows, voters are accountable to themselves. But they are also…
Coexist Part 5: Wrap-up
This is part five of the Coexist series. It wraps up the series started in Part 1. It also provides a framework for assessing these groups and their actions. The opening graphic shows the results of the mass Heaven’s Gate…
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…