All issues considered what one stands out most in casting your vote? 1) Likable character in the candidate 2) Clear-cut winner of the debates 3) Stance taken on a constitutional amendment defining marriage 4) Pro-life or woman’s choice 5) Continuance of the ban on assault weapons or its termination 6) Vouchers as opposed to more funds for public education 7) The candidate who would be the better commander in chief 8) The better foreign policy offe...

The connotation of independent or undecided voter is that those who follow party lines or impulsively decide for one side or another lack independent thinking — lemmings, as it were — and incapable of confronting the monolithic beast. On the other hand, the independent or undecided voter could be perceived as arrogant or incapable of assimilating viewpoints. The arrogant assume all political parties are self-serving; thereby wading through conflicts of interests to arrive at a decision as to w...

Pardon my naiveté but wasn’t Homeland Security supposed to configure the nation’s intelligence agencies under one roof? Is the color-coded alert a sham if there still is no coordination among the sundry, scattered intelligence agencies? Where does the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that there be a super director of intelligence put Tom Ridge? I thought his job was to gather all probable evidence of an attack and appropriate funds and strategies to the most likely targets. If he still is not ...

If Edwards’ speech was a home run; Kerry’s was a grand slam. Religion is to immortalize humankind; secular democracy is to immortalize law. The practice of medicine is to profit; the art of medicine is to heal. Corporate power is designed to control labor and create consumer demand; government power is designed to respect labor and educate consumers. Sin can be described as a violation of God’s law or described as a wilful affront to conscience. Michael Moore is no m...

Only humankind is able to express mental experiences symbolically. Fear, danger, glee and instinctive love are inner experiences of even the animal kingdom, though these experiences cannot be specifically articulated other than by limited rather generic sounds and body language, which it is assumed would lead to much confusion were it not for the miracle of natural instincts. In the human field, an emotion of fear that is subsumed as a notion of terrorism is universally delineated despite t...

Surely there is a sharp distinction between resolute action and obstinate muddling. If the nation is indeed divided evenly then why are conservatives mainstream and liberals extreme? It is cowardice to be for peace and heroic to be for war. View Edwards in the dark cast of trial lawyers, and Cheney in the sunshine of Halliburton. Though at a bar Kerry — an outdoors man — .would captivate his drinking buddies with his knowledge of manly activity, but suddenly the bar empties when he...

When I idealize marriage, I think of monogamous love sublime and indeed holy between a man and a woman. When I perceive marriage in fact it is as a rule a tool for monogamous room mates to legalize an otherwise vague share in the rent, or under contract to pool their full resources to buy a home and perhaps to bear or adopt children. I stress monogamy because I frown on “sleeping around” whether it’s in your own home or cruising the streets, it is still polygamy that thins out the richness of...

Human nature from time immemorial has questioned the substance of its existence. What is consciousness and why can it not satisfy the curiosity of what is one’s inner being? No matter the degree of philosophic intentionality of the self there is always a haunting reflection of another. Because of this human nature invariably turns to what seems the invisible within, an incomprehensible mysterious phenomenon that seems an integral element of whole being. There are three epistemological p...

  The misconception of the mainstream as very religious while at the same time enjoying tailgate barbecues, sex, violence, I-pods, and threatened by gays and abortionists prevents the Democratic Party to return to its traditional but updated values in forging bold plans for America. The media, far from liberal, strikes fear into the Party by covering and propagandizing events to fit what they perceive as mainstream:   Viewers and readers love a good kick ass war of shoc...

The term liberal or left cannot exist without its correlative conservative or right. The term centrist requires a double take to have meaning since the term must logically be in the middle of both ideologies. The greater the tilt of both sides, the wider the center so that a centrist such as Eisenhower implied left and right in moderation, particularly after the popularity of the New and Fair Deals of FDR and Truman, respectively. On the other hand, a centrist such as Nixon — mentored and cont...

Out of the punishing darkness of savagery and tribal warfare is the speculation that a godlike charismatic figure with a sense of subtle punishment emerged to the awe of the tribe. One who stole meat longer lost a hand, but perhaps was scaffolded for a time without nourishment or gorged till he puked; the woman who committed adultery was quaintly tortured until she revealed the co-perpetrator who was then by the husband humiliatingly switched on the bareback and penis. The wife, if impregnated...

Big government is surficially perceived as a sort of Robin Hood that taxes the rich to pay for entitlements for the poor and shiftless. Big business is an entitlement unto itself in virtue of its entrepreneurism and subsequent capital growth. The former answers to its constituency, the latter to its investors. Each therefore is presumed to exercise responsible management. In practice, however, each walls in this responsibility and tends to focus on the trees and is blind to the forest, whic...

The pursuit of happiness is a nebulous phrase that requires examination. First, happiness to one is another’s sadness: marriage is symbolic of an enduring love or simply contrived convenience, pregnancy brings great expectations and paints color on the face of a mother-to-be, or brings depression and drooping lips. Happiness itself is volatile because in the dynamics of daily living it is always under duress. When things go well, there is a sort of honeymoon of happiness, but soon the hug, bec...

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to acknowledge that the vast majority — rightly or wrongly — perceives the nation as Christian based. So it comes as no surprise that an atheist running for some office has a snowball’s chance in hell as it was fifty years ago for a black candidate, other than in districts predominantly black. The non sequitur for this is that non-believers are therefore discriminated against and a violation of their civil rights. One could argue that white candidates in...

Should it matter to the guy who’s straight To snort and rile the one who’s gay? “Live and let live” I hear judgment say — Why ruffle feathers and adjudicate?   To confront a style that does no harm Is perhaps not human nature’s duty To march against what’s abnormality With righteousness and alarm.   Copyright © 2004 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: July, 20, 2004.