Democracy - respectful discourse

  One quality of our democracy is that every citizen is a public official. Thus, the passionate advocacy of political convictions is not only a right, it’s a patriotic obligation.

  What worries me, however, is the tendency of many basically good people to be overcome with self-righteous certainty that they’re right and that those who disagree with them are wrong.

What American schools can learn from other countries about civic disagreement

  Few areas of American life have experienced more conflict of late than public education. The conflict has largely revolved around how public schools should deal with the difficult subjects of race and racism. The situation has become so inflamed that a national school board group asked the federal government to step in and protect school officials and educators from what they said were a growing number of attacks from angry citizens.

Sheldon Richman: Americans should reject Obama-Romney foreign policy

  If we needed evidence of the impoverishment of American politics, the so-called debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney gave us all we could ask for.

  We normally expect a debate to highlight some disagreement, but in American politics disagreement is reserved for minor matters. The two parties — actually the two divisions of the uni-party that represents the permanent regime — agree on all fundamentals. If you need proof, observe how the establishment media treated Ron Paul, who challenged the permanent regime’s basic premises on foreign policy, civil liberties, and monetary control. He dug too deep.

Michael Josephson: Democracy - respectful discourse

  One quality of our democracy is that every citizen is a public official. Thus, the passionate advocacy of political convictions is not only a right, it’s a patriotic obligation.

  What worries me, however, is the tendency of many basically good people to be overcome with self-righteous certainty that they’re right and that those who disagree with them are wrong.