Elizabeth

Today I want to talk about free speech and citizenship. We’ve touched on it before, but we haven’t devoted a whole episode to just that topic before.

Consider this: In any kind of authoritarian government there is no need for free speech. In a monarchy, or dictatorship, or fascist, or any kind of tyrannical government there is no need for the people to have any voice because it is all top down. One guy (and it’s almost always a guy) makes all the decisions and that’s how things are done. The people have no say in anything – so why do they need the permission or ability to speak? There is no need for them to have a voice. But in a government where the people have power, it is absolutely essential for the people to be able to speak, both to each other and to those who rule. The right to speak and the power of the people within the government are directly related. The more powerful the people are to rule themselves the more voice they have in the public sphere to speak to themselves and to those who ostensibly are in charge. [Read More]

We have covered some hefty topics on Kairoticast, before. We’ve talked about truth, conspiracy, misogyny, and race, but today we are courting controversy in a way we have not done before. Of all the things we have talked about before today’s topic is possibly one of the most divisive and produces some of the worst arguments, on all sides, and leads people to do and say terrible things. It is emotionally charged and divisive and has been driving American politics and discourse for decades. This is the abortion episode. [Read More]

Hi. Things are a bit different at Kairoticast today.

We don’t have a full episode for you today because I, Elizabeth, had to take a mental health day in the middle of our usual recording time.

But we thought that would give us a minute to talk about mental health and how important that is.

There is a stigma around mental health, and we all know it. But if you don’t take care of your mind and your emotions there is simply no way to function in a healthy, efficient, productive way – not in the long run. [Read More]

We had the NYT story on Trump’s taxes (which seems like a lifetime ago, if you even remember that), in which we discovered that the President payed $750 dollars in taxes one year on all of his wealth. That struck a number of people as….unfair, to say the least. Then there was the quote/unquote debate. That was the worst hour and a half of politics I have ever witnessed. And anything that gives the Proud Boys and new motto is a bad thing. That’s just facts. Then there was Melania Trump’s tirade about children at the border and Christmas, which in comparison to other things doesn’t seem to rank real high but was a news story for about two minutes. And then the news story to top all stories hit us on Thursday – The President has COVID. And the world was thrown into turmoil. [Read More]

It’s a strange phenomenon where women climb the ranks of a man’s world and instead of trying to make the stage a little friendlier for women, they re-affirm all those things that make the world hostile to women. People have varying theories for this – internalized misogyny, or a desire for individualized, unique power, but it’s a phenomenon we see in the corporate world, the world, of entertainment, the legal world, and the political world. And as long as women are going to throw other women under the bus progress is going to be slow. I’m going to call this the Schlafly Phenomenon. [Read More]