The Handmaid’s Tale has been much talked about ever since the famous novel became a miniseries on Hulu. Like any good dystopian story, the novel wasn’t meant to ask “what if” about the future so much as “how so” about the present. Dystopian stories warn us of what might happen tomorrow. Great dystopian stories plumb deeper, asking what it is about us now that could bring us there.
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Category Archives: Polity
The “Moving the Goalposts” Fallacy
Don’t you hate it when a friend agrees to a set of rules in a game and then complains about them? They try to claim they actually won by weaseling their way out of the contractually agreed-upon rules?
This is a logical fallacy in argument known as moving the goalposts. This fallacy is commonly considered a version of the special pleading fallacy. After a claim is shown to be false, an attempt at making a special exception is made. Continue reading
5 Reasons Why Trade Sanctions are Bad Foreign Policy
So, you hear a lot about sanctions when countries are at odds with one another. You’ve probably heard some about it recently too. A sanction is one country, attempting to penalize another country, places trade restrictions on that country. This also includes imposing tariffs and “freezing” another country’s assets. These sanctions amount to a nation holding hostage another nation’s ability to trade.
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A Week of Being Out of Touch with America
This week, if we learned anything about America, it’s that we have a country out of touch with itself.
This past week, Pepsi tried a commercial in which a high fructose carbonated soda can bring the entire country together by solving racial differences. How? By reinforcing racial stereotypes.
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Reading Flannery O’Connor’s “The Displaced Person”: Part II
Part II—All the Colorful, Useless Peafowl
[Read part I here]
In part two of O’Connor’s story, Mrs. Shortley has left the farm and Mrs. McIntyre is left with the displaced Pole and her black workers. We’re given more insight into her character through her conversations with the older farmhand, Astor. While Astor remembers well her husband, the Judge, Mrs. McIntyre is haunted by her late husband. Astor has noticed two things: The decline of the peacocks and the incline of Mrs. McIntyre’s greed.
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Reading Flannery O’Connor’s “The Displaced Person”: Part I
For fans of Flannery O’Connor, “The Displaced Person” is a a short story that occupies a special place, not only because it exhibits her love for peacocks, but because of its more overt religious themes. The story takes place on a farm, the inciting incident being the hiring of a “displaced person” (or refugee) from Poland. O’Connor, a devout Catholic, is one of America’s most famous writers, known for her southern stories of grotesque people encountering beautiful grace.
If Christians Stand for Truth, We Will Not Believe the President at His Word
“For years, as a conservative radio talk show host, I played a role in [conditioning] by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize those outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled.”
-Charles J. Sykes, Conservative editor of Right Wisconsin
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Unwinding Neil Schusterman’s Unwind
What if the abortion debate was settled by one piece of legislation that compromised both sides?
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The Day The President Promised to Not Put God First
In his inaugural address, President Trump addressed America.
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Hollywood is Liberal, Hollywood is Conservative
You hear from time to time about liberal Hollywood. Hollywood is full of liberals. Hollywood’s liberal agenda. Holly-weird. Hell-i-wood. This year we saw campaign ads featuring famous actors telling us to save the world by voting (obviously for Hillary Clinton). At the Golden Globes Meryl Streep, well, if you saw it you saw it. This may be the most liberal we’ve seen Hollywood in a long time (and maybe ever), but this isn’t Hollywood lashing out as a world of liberals so much as it is Hollywood lashing out as an enemy of Donald Trump. And this time they see someone they can’t help but recognize: A rich celebrity with less political experience than most politicians.
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CALEB COY 