I had been planning on writing a front page rant about race and race mongering in the United States, and this is a topic I still intend to address in the coming weeks. But as I sat down to begin my rant, I realized that Christmas is this coming Wednesday. I spend much of my life contemplating, discussing, and writing about these grand sociopolitical issues that you hear about in this column all the time and it would be typical of me to publish another rollicking rant about some controversial issue today. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that perhaps now is not the time.
Let ‘Em Crash
One of my favorite movies is the 1980s comedy slapstick Airplane! During one scene in the movie, it goes through a montage of newspaper headlines and television newscasters discussing the ongoing situation faced by the characters on an airliner over the United States.
The last clip is of a husky political commentator who chimes in, “They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into! I say, let ’em crash.”
False Starts: IRS Modernization
(Written for an Admin. in Political Systems [GOVT351] class at George Mason University.)
The Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, is arguably the most despised agency in the United States government. Their purpose is essentially to take money from the citizens of this country . . . lots of it. In fact, the IRS collected over 2 trillion dollars in the year 2000 and processed 226 million tax returns—a daunting task, to say the least.1
Christianity: Where Does It Belong?
(Written for Prof. Glen’s Advanced Composition [ENGL302] class at George Mason University.)
Introduction
Christianity as a religion has been a huge part of the human existence to varying degrees over the past two thousand years. While many still consider the religion to be a fundamental part of their life, the raw numbers have declared that church attendance has plummeted in the latter half of the past decade.
The Sound of Silence
(Written for a Public Law & Judicial Process [GOVT301] class at George Mason University.)
There are few issues as uselessly contentious as the issue of silence. What I mean, of course, is legislation which requires that school children observe a “minute of silence” during school hours. The issue in question is whether or not statutes which require minutes of silence violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which guarantees that the people are free from government establishment of religion and government limitation of the practice of their own religion.
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.