Andre's Executive Order

David Harsayni is a senior editor at The Federalist, a conservative blog that gets a great deal of attention nationally. I regularly keep tabs on Real Clear Politics for articles about the election and current events. This shoddy piece of pseudo politics caught my attention and immediately hit a land mine with me. At the risk of making him more popular, a few things need to be said. The article itself: The Fedralist: 10 Abortion Questions Hillary Clinton Won't Answer A good political thinker starts by getting fired up about something. They let their emotions flow about an issue and let those emotions fuel investigation and debate. They explore the ideas with the choir of voices like them then pit those ideas against their opponents and fight it out. But the good political thinker is debating and battling to test the limits and contours of the issue. Like a old grave rubbing, you run the crayon back and forth over the whole area and the outline of the message on the stone gets ...

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." -Genesis, 1:28 This single verse has had a powerful impact on western culture. While fairly simple and straight forward, it forms the religious foundation upon which consumerism, and manifest destiny are justified and things like climate change are denied. The state of humanity is understood to be an ongoing project to subdue and control the natural world, and the conquest of nature and the planet is seen as God's will and therefore just in all actions and most methods. This, itself, has had some terrible consequences for our country. But for some, like Ted and Raphael Cruz it doesn't stop at conquest of the natural world. ' Dominionism ' is a theological approach that reads more into Genesis 1:28 than most ...

Bernie Sanders takes Wisconsin! This makes seven wins out of the last eight contests and reinforces the populist message and its resonance with Americans across the country.  The delegate count, 1279 for Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders' 1027 makes the race appear to be a dead heat. I've spoken with numerous young voters, but Bernie supporters are particularly  excited, enthusiastic, and motivated by the prospect of real populism and the focus of morality and social justice in politics again as a front running concern of a candidate with a proven record of consistency in his approach and priorities. But there's a problem. Bernie Sanders supporters are falling in love with the moment more than the message . Bolstered by the fatigue with political complexity and manipulation by corporation and dark money, Bernie voters are doing what has sabotaged American voters again and again throughout our history. They are loading all their hopes and fears and dreams and fr...

So this is the part where I address offer some magic bullet answers to current conservative positions that to me are hard to defend even from a conservative point of view. I'm going to just very briefly make some suggestions about a broad spectrum of political issues and invite discussion here on facebook about them. This is my version of a top ten list for light consideration by moderate conservative and independent thinkers. Read to the end before you get mad. Immigration Everyone in complicit in this situation. Everyone caused illegal immigration. The government failed to secure the borders and ignored the issue too long. Private industry was quick to use illegal labor all across the US, increasing demand and opportunity for illegals while remaining actively resistant to laws that would toughen enforcement on them. Illegal immigrants were, well, immigrating illegally. And us, the consumers and citizens, enjoyed the fruit of cheap labor without protest until we started seeing ...

“Both parties suck. Both parties lie, cheat, steal, and just exploit the system. Democrats and Republicans are equally bad and too absorbed in their political careers to do a damn thing for the people of America. I'm neither. I've had enough. To hell with the Republi-Cons and the Demo-Craps. I'm an independent.” Heard this before? I hear it, or something like it, usually from 20 somethings or more increasingly from folks my own age. I can almost taste the coming diatribe provoked when someone slips on that unspoken faux pas concerning political discussions in mixed company and laments or celebrates a new law or policy or the shifting status of a current politician. If they're present, the 'independent' rushes to the forefront to explain the horrid state of our political system. Normally I just roll my eyes and get back to my beer. Sometimes I pick the fight. Sometimes I turn to them and say “Hey, really, that's interesting, what would you do differently?” or...