The Simplification Game

In this week's episode, I asked Ian and Sam a question on whether it was possible for someone to disagree with an aspect of a social movement but not be assumed to be against that said movement. I gave the example of Black Lives Matter and its use of civil disobedience in order to achieve their goal of social justice. I was not very sure on how I feel with certain levels of civil disobedience, especially the kinds of actions that saw the burning of police stations, riots and the lootings of shops. I personally thought there may be a problem with the proportionality of this havoc brought about by a movement, that some shop owners or policemen may not be complicit in the structural racism that BLM opposes but they are targeted by street justice. Yet, I also saw how the violence was a result of decades of oppression and the lack of response to the cries of a systematically oppressed race. However, I also had no problem with the pulling down of statues of racist historical figures. Ess...

I'm going to follow what Ian did in the podcast by starting off with a YouTube reference. While researching for this episode, I came across a video by the channel "Autumn On Venus", in which a woman claims not to identify as a feminist and that she hates Third Wave feminism due to how they "do not fight for equality". I could not sympathise with her thoughts because we disagreed on what this Third Wave actually stood for. I should have noted that this was a danger of constraining the discussion of feminism through the use of waves.  A discussion on a broad political ideology constrained within the 30 to 45 minute range is bound to be comparatively shallow, even if the topic we discussed was set within the parameters of a Third World country. It is important that we challenge the foundational assumption of the episode, that it is acceptable or in any way productive to frame the struggles and fights of the feminist movement through its different waves. We aim to e...

Julian Assange has recently been taken into custody by the British government, after his asylum in the Ecuador embassy has been revoked. While the public may be divided on whether Assange should face extradition, there is one thing that should be noted. Extradition can be abused. Like most of the government's capabilities, it can be utilised as a political tool, whether it is to achieve internal political aims or to fulfil international diplomacy goals. With that in mind, there have been times that the British government has not extradited people, even when it seems obvious that they should. Well, why do government's extradite? Nobody is above the law Many British MPs were quick, with the prime minister to be no exception, to stand by the narrative that nobody is above the law. The context is that Assange currently faces allegations of sexual assault while he was in Sweden. He should face the the Swedish authorities and undergo the proper investigation process. He shou...

What is the Wealth Effect? The Wealth Effect, the term used by Jeffrey Chwieroth and Andrew Walter in their book about this topic, is an argument that seeks to justify the growing involvement of the government in the regulation and maintenance of the economy. Thorough research into the facts has shown that there was a correlation between the growing wealth of the middle class and the increasing responsibility to intervene in the economy that the government has found itself to bear. According to the authors (Chwieroth and Walter) there has been evidence that shows how governments have been given this burden over time. One of these proofs was the tone of reporting on economic action that has evolved over time. In 1873, the New York Times (note: liberal) argued that there was no necessity for the government to protect depositors in banks, should anything happen to harm their state of savings. Yet in 1984, it applauded the nationalisation of the Continental Illinois Bank. What seeme...