I’m facing something of a dilemma. 2020 is looking to be an eventful year what with the presidential election and one third of the senate up for grabs and the entire house of representatives. Australia is on fire. The climate crisis is worsening. And then there’s all the regular everyday things that will continue to…
One thing that struck me when I voted today was a complete lack of third party candidates. Line A was the Democrats, Line B was the Republicans, and Line C was write-ins. That was it. It wouldn’t have made a difference in my vote. I was going Democrats all the way (perhaps this is a…
The 2020 presidential election is well underway. There are a ton of Democrats running. And the pathetic excuse for an incumbent Republican is running. I’m nowhere near deciding which candidate to support yet (hint: not Trump). I honestly can’t even name everyone who’s running. But some things have struck me about this election season. The…
I’m an optimistic person. I’m not unrealistic, but my natural assumption is that things will work out OK in the end. I don’t deny the bad things that happen, I just feel like we’ll be able to work through or past them. It works for me. It keeps me hopeful and looking forward. It extends…
Here we are again, about a week from a big election. So, here I am again, encouraging everyone who might read this to vote. It’s taking more effort than usual to write this little plea. I’m seeing a lot of pieces out there lately that are rationalizing people’s decision to forgo voting. They range from…
In Connecticut, where I think most of my readers are, the primaries are this Tuesday. Every time an election is coming up, I like to remind everyone to vote. I know that’s a tall order for a midterm primary, but I want to urge every eligible voter to go out this Tuesday and vote. The…
We are fast approaching an off year election. We are not electing a president or a new congress. That means most people won’t bother to vote and that’s just wrong. Off year elections have a huge impact on our day to day lives. They are when we elect our mayors, our town councils and our…
It’s so easy to denounce Trump supporters as rabid racists and misogynists. Yet more Hispanic voters cast ballots for Donald Trump than Mitt Romney, despite his anti-Mexican rhetoric. More white women voted for Trump than Hillary Clinton, despite his “Grab them by the pussy” comment. On the left, we continue to ask why. Why are these…
I want to pose an honest question, one for which I have no answer. Where is the line at which wrong doing should invalidate an election result? Of course we should strive for perfection, but realistically, there has never been a major election without some level of impropriety. We know that, but we accept the…
Most people, in normal circumstances, get epistemic confidence right. Once we have reached a certain level of maturity, we generally feel confident about the things we know and less confident the less we know. There are things that can get in the way of our epistemic confidence, like harassment, but we usually know what we know and…
