A life in words

  • Harris and class

    First I’ll mention race: Harris’s ancestry is so mixed that in a sense it’s an error to assign her to any one of the traditional (and arbitrary) racial categories. She truly is a product of globalization of the gene pool, and is a taste of the inevitable future when Americans broadly have ancestors from all…

  • Where I’m at with Mormonism: a ramble

    Where I’m at with Mormonism: a ramble

    The question was always there in the back of my mind.

  • Proposed Amendment: No Absolute Immunity; Admissibility of Evidence

    I’m concerned about the implications of the recent Trump v. United States decision, as well as the earlier Nixon v. Fitzgerald. See Wikipedia for an overview. It’s my view that “absolute immunity” is a concept that has no place in a republic. Given that, I thought I’d try my hand at a possible “fix” and…

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves… to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection [and] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption….George Washington, Farewell Address