by jpitney | Aug 16, 2020 | Civil Rights, Constitution, Deliberation
General James Mattis: America is not some finished work or failed project but an ongoing experiment. And it is an experiment that, by design, will never end. If parts of the machine are broken, then the responsibility of citizens is to fix the machine—not throw it...
by jpitney | Aug 8, 2020 | Civic Education, Civility, Deliberation
Eman Hamid, an incoming first-year student at Claremont McKenna College, founded the Purple America Initiative, a national organization to promote civility and deliberation. Last year, she wrote We are living in a critical moment in time. A moment in which the media...
by jpitney | Aug 3, 2020 | Congress, Deliberation, House of Representatives
Jesse M. Crosson Alexander C. Furnas Timothy Lapira Casey Burgat, “Partisan Competition and the Decline in Legislative Capacity among Congressional Offices,” Legislative Studies Quarterly. The abstract: Since the 1990s, members of the US House have...
by jpitney | Jul 27, 2020 | Civility, Congress, Deliberation
The Association of Former Members of Congress interviewed 31 Members who left Congress in 2018 and 2019, from both sides of the aisle. The results are n a publication we’ve entitled “Congress at a Crossroads.” At The New York Times, Carl Hulse summarizes: The study...
by jpitney | Jul 25, 2020 | Civility, Deliberation
Emily Ekins at Cato: A new Cato national survey finds that self‐censorship is on the rise in the United States. Nearly two-thirds—62%—of Americans say the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them...
by jpitney | Jul 24, 2020 | Civility, Deliberation
President George H.W. Bush, University of Michigan Commencement, May 4, 1991: The freedom to speak one’s mind — that may be the most fundamental and deeply revered of all our liberties. Americans, to debate, to say what we think — because, you see,...
