Mr. Glenn Beck held a rally on the 47^th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s  “I Have a Dream” speech. He held his rally for ‘Restoring Honor’ at the same location as MLK did 47 years ago as well. I watched the whole speech and was surprised by his out-of-character appeals for unity, positivity and cohesion amongst all people.

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Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

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Emmer smash! Emmer mad! Grrrr! Emmer unable to form complex human emotions. Emmer Sad.

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I got a response from Target and this is a good one.

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It is almost the 4^th of July. It is getting hot outside and we had our first big thunderstorm of the year this past week. I love this time of the year. As we move forward celebrating another Independence Day I think it is appropriate to look at some current news stories affecting our nation.

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I never took an economics course in college and this is something that I deeply regret. Recently, China announced that they would allow their currency (the Yuan) to float more freely. In their economy they have tighter controls and restrictions, specifically; they have artificially devalued their currency.  This means that their Yuan is worth less then what it would be if they did not devalue it.

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“Each of us puts in common his person and his whole power under the supreme direction of the general will” (Rousseau, p. 425).  What is in the best interest of society and who will lead the general will has been debated throughout the history of civilization. Jean-Jacques Rousseau added to the debate by defining the general will and noting examples when variations of the general will can occur.

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It is obvious to many people that our nation is undergoing a change and we are trying to do so at a time of unparalleled debt. This can be a tricky thing to do. How can one manage the budget, fight multiple wars and have socially progressive programs? This seems like a recipe for disaster, bankruptcy and possibly far worse.

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Everyday I get more and more befuddled by the mess that we call the news. I am shocked to see so many people attack science, intellectualism and education. I am shocked to see so many people cling to pre-modern beliefs that are bad ideas. I am not talking about beliefs such as religion or morality; those are for individuals to choose on their own.

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Tomorrow on January 19^th, 2010 there will be a special election in Massachusetts to decide who will get to hold the senate seat that was held by Sen. Ted Kennedy from 1962 until 2009. The two most prominent candidates are the Republican candidate Scott Brown and the Democrat candidate Martha Coakley.

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Existentialism is the philosophy of existence; asking the question ‘why do humans exist?’ And existentialism critiques how humans conduct their lives.  These questions of existence and being are the focus of the philosophies of Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger.  Many philosophers have written and studied existence, but existentialism framed existence into ones own being.

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Throughout the course of human history many individuals have come forth claiming to know the truth about life.  They claim to know why we are here, what our end goals are and where we are ultimately heading.  The philosopher George Wilhelm Hegel (1770-1831) is one of those people. “Freedom is for itself the goal to be achieved and the only goal of Spirit” (Hegel, 22). Hegel saw human development through history which was guided to freedom through Spirit, in doing so he identified the importance of individuals, the role of the State and the role of freedom.

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The philosophical arguments that Wittgenstein discusses are based in the subtleties of language.  He illustrates his point by using language games.  These games are used to make the argument that the philosophical problems that philosophers spend their time attempting to solve are superfluous. The problems they are attempting to solve are unnecessary because when one properly analyzes the language used in these problems they realize that there are no problems. The problems that were thought to exist are just the result of linguistic confusion, mostly dealing with the metaphysical world.

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“Our system of criminal justice, for all its protections, is sufficiently fallible that innocent people are convicted of capital crimes with some frequency (United States v. Quinones, p. 466).  The morality of the death penalty has been hotly debated for almost a century in the U.S.

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