Founded 1983: Liberal Mindset; Conservative Morality

May 13, 2014October 13, 2023

The Most Intelligent Alternative: In Defense of the Public Good

[Publisher’s Note: Boles Blogs author Howard Stein died on October 14, 2012 at 90 years of age. In an ongoing effort to preserve his legacy and memory, David Boles is sharing articles and preserving other works from his private Prairie Voice archive. The following article was likely written by Dr. Stein in the early 1980’s — and his point still rings true, and still bites us with a bitter hardness of the flat truth — three decades later.]

Public education in the minds of the parents, schoolboards, teachers, and local politicians seems to have as its purpose either the preparing of the young for higher education (preferably private education), or the preparing of the young for a variety of jobs and trades.

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September 16, 2011

Jersey City Covers Its BigBelly Graffiti

On August 15, 2011, I wrote — Is Graffiti Art or Degenerative Hatred? — because I was concerned with the defacing of some brand new BigBelly solar trash cans in Jersey City:

A week ago, in our Panopticonic blog, I wrote an article — BigBelly Solar Recycling in Jersey City — and less than a week later, those divine BigBelly landmarks in our urban core have become geographic eyesores as red graffiti pocks the new surface of the metal bins.

Here’s how one BigBelly was defaced by some noxious red graffiti:

Here’s what that same Big Belly looked like a mere two days after I wrote my article:

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October 22, 2010

Truth in the Tar Pit: Not Everyone has the Right to Express an Opinion

In America, we tend to use “Freedom as Speech” as a cudgel to allow hate speech in the public square and to encourage “Stupid Speech” via the quaint notion that, “Everyone has a right to express their opinion.” I argue today there are some people who have no right to a private opinion, let alone the right to be heard expressing that opinion.

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December 3, 2008

FISA Retroactive Immunity

Can you put Pandora back in the box? The FISA folks appear to think s,o because they are trying to force retroactive immunity for the telecoms. The EEF is fighting that idea in court:

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