Clipmarks | akarra's clips

Why Should Political Science Even Exist?

Sun, 04 May 2008 02:38:34 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: It seems that poli sci is just a major used to get some easy A's in school - why would anyone take the field seriously?

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

But it is true, that despite the best efforts of people to remain stubborn, that they do manage to feel humiliated when proven wrong. I submit that what connects the reasoning behind most people and the reasoning behind the empirical sciences is the idea of argument as a bludgeon. Truth is about something being absolutely true or absolutely wrong. Certainty is possible, because it has been assumed possible.

What if certainty were assumed impossible?

To have a science based on speech is to have a science based on uncertainty. We can only talk to each other because we do not know what the other is thinking. Underneath communication is a sort of skepticism; one has to assume that one has to work to understand another.

Political science starts from taking people's opinions about things seriously. Opinions stem from truth, and reflect it in some way always, but do not emphasize the finality of truth.

Tags: politics, political science, opinion

Hating Keith Olbermann

Sun, 04 May 2008 01:56:16 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: A blogger, um, expresses his dislike for Mr. Olbermann.

Clipmarks is so left-wing it makes Kos look like Alexander Hamilton. This should be fun.

Clip Source: orderdisorder.blogspot.com

A Catholic priest defending his religion is a bigot to Mr. Olbermann. A returning vet that says there is progress in Iraq must be suffering post traumatic stress syndrome. You disagree with the whole "global warming is killing us" gang and you are a holocaust denier. Defend president Bush and he calls you a Nazi. That is some real hard hitting commentary, calling every body stupid, that he employs.

Tags: politics, olbermann, msnbc, media

On Locke's First Treatise of Gov't

Sun, 04 May 2008 01:53:54 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: A blogger looks carefully at the full significance of Locke beginning his treatise with the word "slavery." How, in deliberating types of gov't, can we enslave ourselves?

Clip Source: federalistnowandforever.wordpress.com

The notion that we are all slaves to a single human, a fallible person, is not present in our own human reason or in the Divine Scripture, where one would expect to find Divine Right authority promulgated first. Natural freedom and equality are the older opinions of mankind, not absolute Authority of a single man. Locke even argues that Filmer assents to this belief, that his opinion is the junior.

Tags: locke, politics, government, first treatise, slavery

Emily Dickinson, "What I Can Do, I Will"

Sun, 04 May 2008 01:09:40 GMT

clipped by: akarra
clipper's remarks: Poem clipped, commentary if you follow the URL.

Clip Source: inrethinking.blogspot.com

"What I can do - I will"

Emily Dickinson

What I can do -- I will --
Though it be little as a Daffodil --
That I cannot -- must be

Unknown to possibility --

Tags: dickinson, poetry