It has recently been reported in both the Wall Street Journal and on CBS/NBC/CNN and Fox News that teachers leaving Blue States like New York and California that apply for teaching jobs in Oklahoma will be required to take a Civics test. Having a basic understanding of civics and American History should be a requirement […]
The following article is the opinion of the author and not the Gem State Patriot Sometimes you eat the bear, and other times the bear eats you” That was a saying that was often times repeated by my father to his three sons as we were growing up. Another ritual in our family was that […]
Precise and accurate words are required in order to have precise and accurate debates that are grounded in logic. If one side of a discussion is grounded in logic and reason, and the other side only offers emotion and feelings, there is little opportunity for agreement. After 150 years of failed ideas, socialists, communists, and […]
When I was 25 years old, I proudly served on the USS Virginia as a Junior Officer. Looking back now, 50 years later, it was one of the best years of my life. I qualified as Officer of The Day Underway, I was taught to sail by Master Chief Fred Wright, and probably most importantly, […]
The adage amongst both conservative and progressive political operatives is that “politics follows culture”. That is often times stated as a fact without understanding the cause. When cultural changes create new demands on governments, before they react to the changes, it is incumbent upon serious people to examine the causes. Like GLOBAL WARMING, EVOLUTION, and […]
Politics reflects our own human nature. There are stories about President Reagan and Tip O’Neal sharing a cocktail after they had excoriated each other politically—not personally, earlier in the day. Former District Judge Mike Wetherall told me the story about Senator Frank Church warning Barry Goldwater as they were eating lunch together in the Senate […]
We process information, discern complicated solutions to sometimes simple problems in different ways. Sitting around the coffee table several mornings ago with a group of professional men and women in Seattle—doctors, lawyers, educators, journalists, and a labor organizer, I was asked what informs my decision-making process. Most of the people sitting around the table had […]
Federalist Number 10 written by James Madison famously warned about THE VIOLENCE OF FACTION. Madison defined “faction” as being a number of citizens either in a minority or a majority that were united in a common interest adverse to the rights of others or to the wellbeing of the “common good”. This violence doesn’t need […]
I have never received more e-mail and phone requests from readers of The Gem State Patriot, than I have received regarding articles I have written in the past about civil and government corruption. In the coming weeks, I will write about specific events that have occurred in Boise, and Garden City. In this article, I […]
There are certain basic principles and ideas that form the moral predicates upon which all societies in all parts of the world are grounded. In the Western World these “pillars” upon which societies have been built have been progressively subjugated and are no longer part of the curriculum in public and many private—even Christian schools. […]
The country club class and The Chamber of Commerce Class may own our country, but they don’t run our country. For almost 50 years they did. After World War II, an entire system of recapitalization of our economy grew from the model of what President Eisenhower called the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. Instead of demand signaling […]
A recent article in both PLOS ONE and NEWSWEEK reported on a study, noting a correlation between political ideology and self-reported mental health. My 47 years of practicing medicine and surgery included only 3 months of formal psychiatric training as a medical student, but those 47 years did give me what I think is a […]