The actual gap between the parties’ political attitudes has not increased substantially over time and that members of both parties have consistently overestimated the size of that gap. Moreover, Chambers’ team found that those who perceived the greatest political polarization were more politically engaged – for example, more likely to have voted in the last [...]

[via Lance Robotson] … any questions?

Every time you hear a scary political slogan you are being played for a sucker. [...] Politicians take mountains of money away from people to spend it on imaginary fears that they create from scratch. The problems will never actually be solved but that really doesn’t matter. In fact, if the problems ever were solved, [...]

Why do we choose to bandy about the idea of government initiatives as a means for positive social change (what happened to civilized society changing of its own accord?) and why are we afraid of becoming “socialist”? I think it has something to do with the purported ideals each party represents, the ideals which are [...]

Finally, a candidate without any question of loyalties. We’ve seen massive problems now with the election of state court judges from special interest groups that want to affect the election…That was the reason why we went to elections in the first place, to get rid of special interests. But now they’ve come back with money, [...]

I have had an idea of a utopian society in which Bentham’s Panopticon is realized with omnipresent surveillance and sousveillance of every citizen which is viewable by every other citizen and a sufficient number of negative votes cast against an individual results in the individual’s execution (i.e. if footage of your actions against another individual [...]

All I ask of you is to perform a certain scientific experiment. You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there don’t affect you. If in some hideous dissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a leaden table with red gutters scooped out in it for the blood [...]

“Reform” is also not aspirational, nor hopeful like “Change”. In the meantime, the opposition has their messaging perfected. The Republicans know how to keep it simple and stay on message. In this case keeping it simple means Obama’s plan is socialism. In politics, it matters not that the argument is false, only that it’s believable. [...]

Policy makers and forecasters who see a recovery next year are probably lying to boost public confidence, he said. And the crisis will eventually provoke political conflict, albeit not on the scale of a world war, but violent all the same. … because it [the United States] retains safe-haven status, in a global crisis, investors [...]

Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug. The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had [...]