My thoughts on current affairs. Most of these topics will appear here on Withdrawconsent.org, as well as online and in print at the Idaho State Journal.
“Ground Control to Major Tom. Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong. Can you hear me, Major Tom?” – David Bowie hile Idaho has been dealing with the apocalypse here in the real world, Mike Simpson proposes a plan to kill hydro-power that makes electricity in the Pacific Northwest affordable with the stated goal of saving…
“The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers..” ― Jean Piaget enaissance education is the foundation of the modern university system. It was based on…
“A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.” – Abba Eban verybody is doing it? Perhaps you’ve heard this statement before? Like a genetically ingrained trait such as eye color, every child knows that doing something in the name of the herd is justifiable. If you are scientifically inclined,…
ollowing the 2020 US Presidential election, many dissatisfied voters were left jaded by the failure of our political and judicial systems to address what they believed to be valid concerns in how some states administered their elections. I consider myself one of those people. This widespread concern is demonstrated in the litany of ongoing legal…
“No reproach is more common, no argument better suited to the temper of these times, than those which are founded on the supposed inferiority or incapacity of the Church in political matters.”- John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton onfluence happens where bodies of water meet and combine. Sometimes confluence happens at the mouth of a river where…
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” – C.S. Lewis hat price would you pay for comfort? Would you turn over your savings to…
“People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception.” – Charles Dudley Warner great piece of advice in political discourse is to watch out for subversive language or hyperbole. Whether it’s slandering their opponents, naming a piece of legislation, or characterizing initiatives; if the argument is dressed up in hyperbole you can know that the…
“Crazy people don’t sit around wondering if they’re nuts.” – Jake Gyllenhaal don’t know who needs to hear this, but you’re not nuts! The post-Covid circumstances in which we find ourselves are not normal, and you are under no obligation to accept a new normal. You are a sovereign human being, not a cog in…
“Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.” – Bertrand Russell ne of the worst developments of modern culture is the elevation of perceived equity or fairness at the cost of excellence. What gives value to something is rarity, and excellence is rare. Whether you’re in possession of some…
“16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.” – Revelations 13 n the…
“Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” – Deuteronomy 10:19 little over a decade ago my wife and I sat down to figure out where we would be relocating from Georgia for work and school. I actually created a spreadsheet of likely markets and ranked them based on a…
‘Each era has the fatal hubris to believe that it has once and for all climbed to the top of the mountain and can see everything as it is, from the highest and most objective vantage point possible.” – Eric Metaxas he Civil War has always been an interesting topic for this Northern transplant, raised…
“History fancies itself linear – but yields to a cyclical temptation.” ― Criss Jami hen I started writing, it was never my intention to cover matters of race. My writing is a place for me to explore withdrawing consent from the emerging society. Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “no one can make you feel inferior without your…
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald hile recently browsing an editorial magazine I was frustrated that the content of each piece echoed the theme expressed in the surrounding pieces. The…
“You can only depend on yourself. The cavalry ain’t coming.” – Chris Gardner y now you’ve probably all heard of the Q-anon conspiracy movement. If not, it’s this idea that in government there exist black hats and white hats, and that this good vs. evil tale as old as time is playing out before our…
“You got to know when to hold ’em, Know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away, And know when to run.” – Kenny Rogers ashington often refers to the ugly parts of DC as the sausage-making. It is the unsavory process that must take place for us to arrive at an end legislative…
“This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their…
“People who devote their lives to studying something often come to believe that the object of their fascination is the key to understanding everything.” ― Jonathan Haidt ast year around the time of the tragic death of George Floyd we saw a very coordinated public campaign on Social Justice in response, that seemingly permeated every facet…
“Corporations cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls.”- Edward Coke istorically, capitalism has been denounced by opponents as heartless and greedy. In contemplating this characterization, I find that critics are not necessarily wrong. The profit motive of capitalism is born in maximizing returns, and the system itself is not concerned…
“The death of one man: that is a catastrophe. One hundred thousand deaths: that is a statistic!” – Kurt Tucholsky ack in September of 2007, there was an article on Cracked.com about a scientific theory called The Monkeysphere. I would encourage you to read it in order to provide some context to this piece, but…