Author: Douglas Brooks

I’m sure you saw that the FBI ran more background gun checks on Black Friday than ever before. How many of those were assault weapons or just _weapons_ that have nothing to do shooting Bambi or turkeys or ducks or some other creature than humans? I grieve as much as I feel the fury,...

About Al Franken and the RestOpinion is Reasoned Argument, Judgment is Justice A friend I admire asked me to weigh in on Al Franken, an issue I would prefer to avoid but won’t. We live in troubled times because the more we _need_ certainty, the more that need will turn on us. The only...

Roy Moore’s behavior today is an extension of the culture wars. His behavior then was yet another example of sanctioned cultural and religious behavior that invited his abuses. How much have things changed in terms of cultural _values_ in rural Alabama since the ’60s, particularly among undereducated Evangelical Christians? No matter how much has...

We’re 10% Rational, the Rest isNames, Forms, and Ideas We’d like to think that we arrive at our political convictions, which include ideas about social justice, economics, liberty, and self-determination by having given different viewpoints their due. I’m not discounting that notion entirely: that we humans sometimes try to be rational persons. I suffer...

General Kelly’s Moral Turpitude, Trump’s Empty Center, and Our Response to Moral CertaintyThere is such a thing as irreconcilable differences. There are values that demand taking a stand. We must concede honest differences about values, how we choose to live, and what we can expect of others. What we must do to _live together_...

The Party of Lincoln is Officially the Party of TrumpAn Essay in Idealism For all of his many serious faults and deep complexities, Abraham Lincoln meant to change America, not merely restore the Union. Before 1859 America created self-evident truths that were neither self-evident nor true unless you were white, male, and landed. The...

October 23rd, 2017This morning’s sutras:@profdbrkGeneral Kelly changed job descriptions this past week: from adult day-care shift supervisor to enabler. We become the company we keep.@rajanakaCourage is not virtue. Courage is the requisite to be virtuous. October 24th 2017 Rubber Meet RoadReaganism and the New Republican Party “Establishment” Republican means Reaganism but the New Republican...

Though it has been said from the outset and can’t be said too often, Trump is unfit for the office.  Alabama Republicans just nominated for the Senate a malignant ingrate and religious extremist, but even worse, someone who possesses a fundamental disrespect for the rule of law.  This willful ignorance and rejection of the...

In this age of short attention spans, virtual facts, and lowered denominators, let me ask: when is it important to exaggerate, lie, and cynically promise the moon when you know that leveling with people is a loser?  Do good ideas need to be lied about or surrounded with misleading, unfinished, and incomplete truths just...

Studying Religion and Acting Politically:How We Decide to be HumanIn the study of religion we consider how people’s beliefs, values, and actions inform our human responses to nature, culture, and individual conscience. As professionals we must consider our subject the way a myrmcologist takes up ants, that is, we study our subject first in...