Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

‘Partial Birth’ Abortion Policy

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(Written for Prof. Edner’s Public Policy Making [GOVT364] class at George Mason University.)

Introduction

Intrauterine cranial decompression abortions, alternatively called ‘intact dilation and extraction (D&X)’ or ‘partial birth’ abortions, are one of the most controversial issues to make their way through the public policy process in years. Some consider the procedure a protected part of a woman’s right to an abortion (under Roe v. Wade), while others consider the procedure a barbaric form of murder.

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Earlier and Earlier

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I turned on the radio some time the week before Thanksgiving week, and flipped through a few of my stations to see what everybody was playing. To my horror, DC’s soft-rock station—97.1 WASH FM—had switched to an all-Christmas-music format in anticipation of the big holiday on December 25th.

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The Kingdon Policy Window Model and Its Application to the New York Public Smoking Ban

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(Written for Prof. Casamayou’s Public Policy Cycles/Public Health [GOVT490] seminar class at George Mason University.)

Introduction

Recently, there have been moves in several jurisdictions to ban or limit smoking in public. There is no question that smoking is dangerous to the smoker, but the smoker has made the choice to pick up the cigarette. Smoking bans represent a recognition of the dangers cigarette smoke poses to nonsmokers nearby, including those who are exposed to smoke in their workplace.

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Comparing and Contrasting Hobbes’s and Locke’s States of Nature

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(Written for Prof. Paden’s Modern Western Political Theory [GOVT324] class at George Mason University.)

Introduction

Under social contract theory and its various iterations, the state of nature plays a similar role. It is considered the predecessor to government, an anarchy (or semi-anarchy) that—for one reason or another—people wanted or needed to get out of. Social contract theories seek to explain why people have established governments, and to understand the establishment of governments it is necessary to first understand what existed before and why people wanted to change that preexisting status quo.

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A Touch of Personality

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“There is one possibility. Highly experimental,” Dr. Maureen Wiest told her dying patient. “A technology that’s never been tested on humans.”

“I’m all ears.” Actually, he was hungry. Terminal cancer was no match for Vernon Ames’s appetite. He pulled a Three Musketeers bar from his pocket and began to unwrap it. “But you said it was inoperable. Hell, I don’t really give a s###, let it kill me.”

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Posted in: Fiction

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.