Archive for the ‘Political Philosophy’ Category

The advantage of such a distressing election year is that it gives us the opportunity for serious reflection.  Realizing that our political system has reached a crisis point, we need to step back from the so-called debates over single issues and examine fundamental political questions.  In this essay I propose to define the nature of government and then demonstrate the necessary consequences of that nature to political liberty. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the consistent accusations against those who voted in favor of Brexit, the referendum on Great Britain leaving the European Union (EU), is that they are racists.  The charge is based upon the facts that the great majority of those who voted for Brexit are white and many are motivated by an anti-immigrant bias, even animus.  In contrast, the opponents of Brexit view themselves as tolerant, even welcoming, of racial differences.

The problem with the anti-Brexits’ racist charge is that it is inexact and self-serving.  Read the rest of this entry »

In our previous three posts I argued that Bernie Sanders was not a socialist according to any of the three major historical socialist movements—utopian, revolutionary, and evolutionary.  In this post I’ll argue that Sanders fits in more with the American political tradition of left-wing populism and progressivism.  Read the rest of this entry »

In the previous two posts Bernie Sanders, the first presidential candidate of one of the two major political parties in American history to declare himself a socialist, has been shown to be neither a utopian socialist nor a revolutionary socialist.   The question now is whether he can be legitimately labelled an evolutionary socialist.  Read the rest of this entry »

Bernie Sanders is the first viable presidential candidate for a major political party to describe himself as a socialist.  The importance of this event in American political history must not be underestimated and is the reason for this series on the three major movements in the history of socialism (utopian, revolutionary and evolutionary).  The first post https://www.billisley.com/?p=1192 covered utopian socialism and concluded that Senator Sanders is not a utopian socialist.  This post will examine revolutionary socialism. Read the rest of this entry »