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The Doomsday Clock and Human Leadership

ByDigestThis

For dozens of centuries the aristocracy mocked and doubted the common people’s capacity to lead. Then came “We hold these truths to be self-evident … all men are created equal … they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights … among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” If you believe these words, then you own responsibility for human leadership now.

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Thankful for Taxpayers

ByDigestThis

Before Thanksgiving weekend 2011 passes into history, let us be thankful for people who pay their taxes, because they are supporting the people who don’t. Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Indeed, civilization cannot exist without taxes, by which we pay for…

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Vox Populi in Zuccotti Park

ByDigestThis

The proverb “Vox populi, vox Dei” – “The voice of the people [is] the voice of God” – can be traced back to the eighth century, though earlier origins are probable. Yet the eighth-century version, considered in its entirety, actually meant the opposite of what most people think today. In a 798 A.D. letter to…

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Redux: Scary Halloween

ByDigestThis

Fear comes alive on Halloween. Halloween costumes are practical technology designed to simplify our joking about frightening subjects. The ghosts and the goblins are the outside joke. The inside joke is death. Halloween is the night when death walks around our neighborhoods dressed like a common Joe as if to remind us of its inevitability….

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Wetbacks All

ByDigestThis

In 1875 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the federal government is responsible for regulating immigration. In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower urgently empowered the Immigration and Naturalization Service to “remove illegal immigrants, mostly Mexican nationals, from the southwestern United States.” The expulsion program’s official name was Operation Wetback. Border patrol, state and local…

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Political Expediency and Social Change

ByDigestThis

A recently leaked memo suggested that British Prime Minister David Cameron’s government was not doing well with women voters. As reported in The Economist on Oct. 15, 2011, this finding may account for “a stream of female-friendly policy announcements, including calls for more women on company boards and new guidelines to shield children from online…

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This Sounds Familiar

ByDigestThis

We must never forget that abject poverty is an inescapable reality for more than a billion people living on Earth today. The majority of us pray that civilization will learn to better manage and even overcome this ongoing social catastrophe. Meanwhile, most of humanity expects to better their own personal circumstances. Recession, Depression, Famine Humanity…

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Retroactive Xenophobia

ByDigestThis

The Ten Commandments appear three times in the Bible. Each entry is different. The Jewish, Protestant and Roman Catholic versions of the Ten Commandments are similar but not identical. The precise intention of the original text was subject to interpretation as the sacred words of the Ten Commandments were translated into new languages and cultures….