Author Archives

I'm a philosophy professor at the University of Lethbridge in Southern Alberta, Canada. I specialize in philosophy of war, game theory, contractarianism, and theodicy (the Problem of Evil). I am bald, fat, and ugly, but my wife loves me, so I don't care.

• THE CAMPAIGN AS OF AUGUST 2019

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 5, 2019 • ( 0 )

  Donald Trump may be an idiot, but even an idiot can accidentally hit on the right strategy. He knows that his so-called base, about 40%, isn’t enough to get him re-elected. And there’s nothing he can do to add to… Read More ›

• MASS SHOOTINGS AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 5, 2019 • ( 0 )

  In the wake of the El Paso and Dayton shootings, Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has just taken her turn at the now-obligatory think-of-the-children bleat. It’s almost, but not quite, as obligatory as our-hearts-go-out-to. Politicians have simply got to hire some… Read More ›

• GRETA THUNBERG

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  How much is myth, and how much is history, we’ll never know, but either way what the Children’s Crusade tells us is that there’s not a whole lot that’s new under the sun. What’s widely acknowledged is that in the… Read More ›

• THE CASE AGAINST HISTORICAL REVISIONISM

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  I’ll put my civil libertarian credentials up against anyone’s. But I have to confess that the older I get, the less principled I become. I like to think it’s because I’m becoming more understanding, in this case of those powerful… Read More ›

• ISRAEL’S NEW NATION STATE LAW

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  Like the proverbial boiling of the frog, it always starts with an imperceptible change in temperature. And every change thereafter is just as imperceptible. If you worry it’s the thin edge of some mephistophilian wedge, you’re an alarmist. You’re awfulizing…. Read More ›

• JURIES AND RACE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  During the month of February, 2018, the Crown saw fit, in two separate cases, to put a white man on trial, one in Saskatchewan, the other in Manitoba, for wrongfully causing the death of a young aboriginal man and an… Read More ›

• CALLING OUT CODE-CALLING

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 1 )

  I’m not sure it’s anything new, so I’ll just say there’s a particular effective but pernicious ploy in popular argumentation that I’m going to call ‘code-calling’. For example, during the 2016 Presidential campaign Americans were told that accusing so-and-so of… Read More ›

• THE UCP GOVERNMENT’S FREE EXPRESSION PROPOSAL

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  It’s rare that I find myself expressing unqualified support for a piece of legislation that the government, or so I hope, is about to enact.. But the UCP’s proposal for An Act to Protect Free Expression at Alberta’s Public Colleges… Read More ›

• AN OPEN LETTER TO MY AS-YET-UNINITIATED STUDENTS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 1 )

  Some university administrators, and a few of my colleagues, want to offer you a babysitting service, not for your children but for yourselves. And some of you got so used to it in high school that you want to be… Read More ›

• THE SUMMA POLITICA

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  I’d like to buy the world a Coke. I imagine you would too, though perhaps we’d both make it something a little lower in sugar. Unfortunately, making the world a better place for some people, even for the vast majority… Read More ›