Common Sense for the Common Good


Book Description

With the contentious 2016 U.S. presidential election cycle spinning into its final phases, only one thing seems clear: the American people are less than satisfied with the two major political parties’ candidates. Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party candidate for president and former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, stakes his claim to the very center of the political spectrum. His new e-pamphlet Common Sense for the Common Good offers his approach to how a member of a third party, acting as the Chief Arbiter of the U.S., can restore sanity and functionality to the highest office in the land. Johnson succinctly shares his views on how the two-party system is dysfunctional. How its binary approach to issues doesn’t reflect the multiplicity of viewpoints inherent in our contemporary society. How the nasty divisiveness that rules public and private discourse is endemic to this flawed and outdated system. He offers his alternative to the dualistic electoral process—and why he believes the on/off, black/white, I’m right/you’re wrong thinking—cripples our minds and grinds government to a halt. He takes on the challenge of explaining Libertarianism as a philosophy that espouses: Freedom of choice Limited government intrusion into our personal lives Free market capitalism Equalizing opportunity for all This e-pamphlet sets the stage for Johnson’s forthcoming book, which is part memoir and part manifesto. In just 50 pages he describes his own personal and political evolution. He firmly believes that, if the rigged electoral polling and debate processes were fair, the vast majority of Americans would come to understand that their beliefs and values are best represented by the Libertarian Party.




The Common Good


Book Description

Robert B. Reich makes a powerful case for the expansion of America’s moral imagination. Rooting his argument in common sense and everyday reality, he demonstrates that a common good constitutes the very essence of any society or nation. Societies, he says, undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine it, one of which America has been experiencing for the past five decades. This process can and must be reversed. But first we need to weigh the moral obligations of citizenship and carefully consider how we relate to honor, shame, patriotism, truth, and the meaning of leadership. Powerful, urgent, and utterly vital, this is a heartfelt missive from one of our foremost political thinkers.




Common Sense Government


Book Description




Try Common Sense: Replacing the Failed Ideologies of Right and Left


Book Description

Award-winning author Philip K. Howard lays out the blueprint for a new American society. In this brief and powerful book, Philip K. Howard attacks the failed ideologies of both parties and proposes a radical simplification of government to re-empower Americans in their daily choices. Nothing will make sense until people are free to roll up their sleeves and make things work. The first steps are to abandon the philosophy of correctness and our devotion to mindless compliance. Americans are a practical people. They want government to be practical. Washington can’t do anything practically. Worse, its bureaucracy prevents Americans from doing what’s sensible. Conservative bluster won’t fix this problem. Liberal hand-wringing won’t work either. Frustrated voters reach for extremist leaders, but they too get bogged down in the bureaucracy that has accumulated over the past century. Howard shows how America can push the reset button and create simpler frameworks focused on public goals where officials—prepare for the shock—are actually accountable for getting the job done.




The Common Good


Book Description

First published in 1986. In this thought-provoking book the widely acclaimed thinker and activist, Marcus Raskin, moves beyond the limits and failures of socialism and capitalism to an original theory of social reconstruction for a humane society. Presenting concrete alternatives for education, health, economics and national security he develops a new conception of democracy and the rule of law in relation to our common good. A political and philosophic tool designed for those who search for alternatives in their lives and in the world, The Common Good shows how to organize for social reconstruction, the type of leadership now required, and the importance of restoring progress as a political purpose. Defining politics as broader than the mere manifestation of power, Raskin’s vision helps the left and liberals find their way towards a new public philosophy and program.




Common Goods


Book Description

In the face of globalized ecological and economic crises, how do religion, the postsecular, and political theology reconfigure political theory and practice? As the planet warms and the chasm widens between the 1 percent and the global 99, what thinking may yet energize new alliances between religious and irreligious constituencies? This book brings together political theorists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars of religion to open discursive and material spaces in which to shape a vibrant planetary commons. Attentive to the universalizing tendencies of “the common,” the contributors seek to reappropriate the term in response to the corporate logic that asserts itself as a universal solvent. In the resulting conversation, the common returns as an interlinked manifold, under the ethos of its multitudes and the ecology of its multiplicity. Beginning from what William Connolly calls the palpable “fragility of things,” Common Goods assembles a transdisciplinary political theology of the Earth. With a nuance missing from both atheist and orthodox religious approaches, the contributors engage in a multivocal conversation about sovereignty, capital, ecology, and civil society. The result is an unprecedented thematic assemblage of cosmopolitics and religious diversity; of utopian space and the time of insurrection; of Christian socialism, radical democracy, and disability theory; of quantum entanglement and planetarity; of theology fleshly and political.




Dictionary of Untranslatables


Book Description

Characters in some languages, particularly Hebrew and Arabic, may not display properly due to device limitations. Transliterations of terms appear before the representations in foreign characters. This is an encyclopedic dictionary of close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms and concepts that defy easy—or any—translation from one language and culture to another. Drawn from more than a dozen languages, terms such as Dasein (German), pravda (Russian), saudade (Portuguese), and stato (Italian) are thoroughly examined in all their cross-linguistic and cross-cultural complexities. Spanning the classical, medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary periods, these are terms that influence thinking across the humanities. The entries, written by more than 150 distinguished scholars, describe the origins and meanings of each term, the history and context of its usage, its translations into other languages, and its use in notable texts. The dictionary also includes essays on the special characteristics of particular languages--English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Originally published in French, this one-of-a-kind reference work is now available in English for the first time, with new contributions from Judith Butler, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Ben Kafka, Kevin McLaughlin, Kenneth Reinhard, Stella Sandford, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jane Tylus, Anthony Vidler, Susan Wolfson, Robert J. C. Young, and many more.The result is an invaluable reference for students, scholars, and general readers interested in the multilingual lives of some of our most influential words and ideas. Covers close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms that defy easy translation between languages and cultures Includes terms from more than a dozen languages Entries written by more than 150 distinguished thinkers Available in English for the first time, with new contributions by Judith Butler, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Ben Kafka, Kevin McLaughlin, Kenneth Reinhard, Stella Sandford, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jane Tylus, Anthony Vidler, Susan Wolfson, Robert J. C. Young, and many more Contains extensive cross-references and bibliographies An invaluable resource for students and scholars across the humanities




Journey of the Soul Car


Book Description

Journey of The Soul Car : Change the Direction of Your Life With a Shift in Attitude, is one of the stops on a path that all began with one woman struggling so hard against the negative forces of life that were winning the battle that she crawled in a corner of her living room and swallowed pills to end her existence here on earth. It is a story of how fate intervened and not only kept her alive and kicking but brought her to a place in her life where she is able to share her story to inspire others to never give up, never give in and keep a steady hand on the wheel so that you keep motorvating down the highway of life.




Common Sense and Legal Judgment


Book Description

What does it mean when a judge in a court of law uses the phrase “common sense”? Is it a type of evidence or a mode of reasoning? In a world characterized by material and political inequalities, whose common sense should inform the law? Common Sense and Legal Judgment explores this rhetorically powerful phrase, arguing that common sense, when invoked in political and legal discourses without adequate reflection, poses a threat to the quality and legitimacy of legal judgment. Often operating in the service of conservatism, populism, or majoritarianism, common sense can harbour stereotypes, reproduce unjust power relations, and silence marginalized people. Nevertheless, drawing the works of theorists such as Thomas Reid, Antonio Gramsci, and Hannah Arendt into conversation with rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada, Patricia Cochran demonstrates that with careful attention, the democratic, egalitarian, and community-sustaining aspects of common sense can be brought to light. A call for critical self-reflection and the close scrutiny of power relationships and social contexts, this book is a direct response to social justice predicaments and their confounding relationships to law. Creative and interdisciplinary, Common Sense and Legal Judgment reinvigorates feminist and anti-poverty understandings of judgment, knowledge, justice, and accountability.