As long as Trump was smearing the reputations of Black leaders, tearing Hispanic toddlers from their parents’ arms, denying entry to the country based on (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
My new Web site
Umbrage taken
10/05/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentI’ve been meaning to take umbrage for some time, a sort of general umbrage derived from poor thinking, usually other people’s. How about that Charles (Continue Reading)
Gun Control: third step
09/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentLaws concerning the ownership, purchase, licensing, and selling of guns, including advertising, have the status of a third rail of politics, like Social Security. There (Continue Reading)
Gun Control Fourth step: road blocks to massacre
09/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentOnce we have dispelled the notion that we can identify mentally ill people who are dangerous and the notion that we can erect bunkers and (Continue Reading)
Gun Control: second step is higher security
09/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentArmed teachers. I love the concept, thinking back on all those macho coaches swaggering down the hallways. Remember Joe Clark carrying his baseball bat around (Continue Reading)
All liberals are communists and all conservatives are fascists
09/13/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentOr at least that seems to be the way our political arguments go. If you do not support Black Lives Matter you must be a (Continue Reading)
Gun control: first step is a non-starter
08/18/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe recent and hopeless spate of pronunciamentos on gun violence shows a terrible skewing toward the Left for depressing the ubiquity of military weapons, so (Continue Reading)
Start with the basics – a history lesson
07/14/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentU.S. History, First Semester, first day of class We start with documents, the stuff of history. We have foundational documents. One is the Declaration of (Continue Reading)
How bridge the gap?
07/04/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentHere’s a quote I put in my What Conservatives Think entry: John Stuart Mill called Conservatives the stupid party b/c they don’t think much about (Continue Reading)
Simple answer
06/29/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentA woman was indicted for manslaughter for the death of her fetus. She was five months pregnant when she started a fight with another woman. (Continue Reading)
Essence of clear thinking based on science
06/07/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentFrom Nadine Burke-Harris’ The Deepest Well, p. 171: “Toxic stress is a result of a disruption to the stress response. This is a fundamental biological (Continue Reading)
Lost your legs in combat? 2 solutions:
05/17/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentRed State: you don’t get a wheel chair; it’ll just make you weak Blue State: don’t go to war The real world: use diplomacy until (Continue Reading)
the pursuit of happiness
05/16/2019 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsI’ve been looking up this phrase and trying to remember where I heard, on TV recently, that it substituted for “property.” According to an article (Continue Reading)
What Conservatives Think
05/12/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentHere’s how conservatives see the country. Minorities of color vote for Democrats b/c they give them free stuff – that’s the conservatives’ term for it: (Continue Reading)
What do you mean, “being destroyed?”
05/07/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentLiberals often cry that the institutions of this country are being destroyed, our justice system, our economy, our immigration heritage, religion, education, even art. They (Continue Reading)
No gummit hepped me….
05/02/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentRick Perlstein in Before the Storm cites the ferociously conservative center, Orange County, and how its residents decried government help of shiftless people. As a (Continue Reading)
Probing Barr’s Brain
04/18/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhat if we had a probe we could insert into Wm. Barr’s brain and suck out his idea, concepts, ideals, motives, dreams, and purpose. What (Continue Reading)
Early influences on my views of African-Americans
04/17/2019 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsTwo books I recall reading as a kid: Louis Armstrong’s autobiography Satchmo! and Richard Wright’s Black Boy. The former the librarian wouldn’t check out to (Continue Reading)
The stupidest congressman?
04/11/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentThomas Massie questioning John Kerry. Has any congressman ever said anything so stupid? Do you want me to quote him? Why are we told over (Continue Reading)
The essence of a Liberal’s outlook
04/10/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentGary Wills is half a decade older than me and I have admired and marveled at his broad sweep of expertise from the Classical World (Continue Reading)
D’Souza vs Cortez!!!
04/06/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentSounds like fight night, right? No, it’s a disgusting conservative challenging the right of Puerto Rico to be considered an entity, an extant item in (Continue Reading)
The shrinking society
03/13/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentReturning to my listservs I left over a year ago, I found the number of posts to be drastically reduced; on one list only one (Continue Reading)
A look at one process or dynamic in cultural institutions
02/22/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentReligion is often depicted as “going to seed” so to speak by becoming rigid and doctrinaire, depending more on transmitted authority than independent, outside-the-box thinking (Continue Reading)