In the wake of every mass shooting in this country the forces of gun control and gun proliferation meet on the battlefields of social media and cable news networks to lob rhetorical missiles at each other. One perennial argument offered by those in the latter category is what I have termed the “evil will prevail” […]
Is there a war against conservative free speech in this country? If we are to believe the tirades coming from such right-wing organs as The Daily Caller, there is no doubt that a war is raging between the Quixotic champions of the First Amendment (the vilified, threatened and intimidated voices of the political right) and the […]
There seems to be two unassailable truths when it comes to policymaking and government budgeting: 1) military spending is sacrosanct and 2) education related spending, however much it’s praised during campaigning, is always a viable source of savings. Let us, for a moment, consider the case of a program called 21st Century Community Learning Centers, […]
What we in North Carolina have witnessed over the past few days is, in many ways, a nearly perfect demonstration of how we would like our governments to work: neither side emerged fully satisfied, but both sides could still claim some degree of victory. The most despised element of the original S.L. 2016-3, the requirement […]
In all the discussion, debate and hyperbole surrounding the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) and its efforts by reactionary forces in the US Congress to dismantle and/or replace it, there seems to be one issue left out that, I believe, is the core issue in the entire conversation over healthcare in America: is healthcare a […]
As states across the country continue to undermine the voting rights of their citizens, let us look briefly at one of the simplest, yet most effective barriers to the exercise of voting rights. In an effort to halt the great specter of “voter fraud” state governments have established regulations that force voters to present ID […]
Passive genocide, I think, is an appropriate phrase to describe the misguided, nonsensical and unconscionable actions recently taken by Donald Trump and his cadre of toadies in the Executive Mansion. Rather than directly targeting, bombing and massacring a certain group of people (i.e. Muslim refugees from the list of 7 countries), the syndicate in the […]
It has been long established that flag burning is an activity protected under the First Amendment. The burning of this symbol strikes many as unpatriotic, seditious, insulting and decidedly illegitimate protest. The beauty of the First Amendment, however, lies in its ability to elevate controversial forms of protest and defend them against silencing. It reinforces […]
A reflection upon education, anarchist theory and a brief reading from Max Stirner
Point 1 | The lexicon of the liberal democracy is insufficient to appeal to all people in all contexts. The attraction to liberal democracy is largely dependant upon a multitude of factors, but it is impossible to identify any universal core principle that would require people to adopt a new liberal democratic form of organizing. The […]
Antidote Notes 