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Tag Archives: Democracy

An Expatriate’s Apology

Friday, September 16, 2011

Since telling people that we’re soon to be back on our native continent, I’ve had many people ask (on- and offline) whether I was going to change the title of this blog. A discussion of this blog’s title has been kicking around in my head since I first started it. My varied attempts to write […]

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Turmoil in Egypt

Sunday, January 30, 2011

This is a stark assessment of the current state of the Egyptian regime from STRATFOR, whose perspective on geopolitical matters I’ve come to value greatly over the years. While the situation is not without hopeful signs (the military’s restraint against the protesters yesterday was praiseworthy), the problems the Egyptian people face over the coming days […]

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Stasis, (North) American Style

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

I continue to watch events unfold in North America, and what I see makes me happier every day that I left. The fools “governing” both the United States and Canada should read Aristotle’s Politics, 5.1-4 (hopefully re-read, but that seems unlikely at best) and reflect on what he says about political stasis and how regimes fail. […]

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Book Review (in progress): John Ralston Saul’s ‘A Fair Country’

Monday, June 29, 2009

I have been making progress through A Fair Country while killing time in the waiting room of my wife’s OB/GYN. In two visits, I’m now over 1/3 of the way through. If my son continues to loiter, I may have it complete before he’s born. As with everything of his that I’ve read to date, […]

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Reading, and other matters

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

I spent the morning with my long-suffering wife in the OB/GYN’s office, where we waited over 2 hours for her to be seen. In the interest of avoiding grinding my mental gears, I left the philosophical reading at home for the occasion and instead took with me Thomas Frank’s newest, The Wrecking Crew. It’s an […]

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Random Political Philosophy-related Thought

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Both Plato and Nietzsche are famously critical of democracy. Nietzsche’s disparagement of democracy is much more oriented towards its corrosive effect on philosophy as a way of life, however, where Plato suggests that democracy is actually conducive to the philosophic life. What, then, is the decisive difference between ancient and modern democracy? The most obvious difference is […]

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