John E. Downing

Good information, down to earth, highly recommend

Revisado: 03-09-25

Very acute observations about our human dilemma and development. A surprise was that the last chapter was about putting it all together with meditation. I have been a secular Buddhist for about 50 years and his description of meditation is probably the best I have found anywhere. excellent book.

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The disparity between intentions to be good and help people and the effect of those policies are often opposites

Revisado: 12-08-24

I like his emphasis on Data to see if social policies help or hinder people getting themselves out of poverty, and the resistance of those who come up with new policies to evaluate their effect objectively.

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Many small details, not available in earlier accounts

Revisado: 11-24-24

Accounts of all the difficulties that Linkon had and that there was a lot more pushback against him that I realized. He was often slow to make decisions but persisted once he made up his mind

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Excellent practical advice for facing death for yourself or loved ones

Revisado: 09-13-24

Liked specific recommendations and things to understand about death and the dying process. I like the way she read it also.

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Ideas for having better relationships

Revisado: 08-22-24

I like that the author read it. It almost always improves, listening to books and articles.

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Detailed steps, and how strong and take over democracies, and make them autocracies

Revisado: 01-01-24

She traced in detail how a number of different democracies have

It is
slid into autocracy through the national nations of strong, politicians, chilling, and we are well along the path in the United States

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Very timely discussion of Identity Politics

Revisado: 10-16-23

Looks into the origin of emphasis on identity as a member of a particular group, whether ofskin color, ethnic origin or religious beliefs, and discusses at length the dangers of lumping people together by their appearance, or background, rather than as humans with varied beliefs, needs and experience. We should be able to sort ourselves on the basis of beliefs and Interests rather than on an inborn characteristic like skin color. We are all more complicated than having any
one immutable characteristic.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Identity politics and political correctness is ruining our democracy

Revisado: 06-14-23

I had read about the pernicious effects of identity politics and favoring particular groups, in the writings of Thomas Sowell. I’ve been very distressed by the dumbing down of our educational system to let people who are not willing to make an effort get passing grades. a well informed polity is critical to our continuing as a free country. We have to stop the efforts of the radical left to continue their well-meaning, but disastrous attempts to help those who are not doing well by lowering standards , rather than helping them raise theirs. I am a white male and understand the privilege that gives me I do not want to give that up, but want to help other people have the same privileges even though they are of a different ethnic background and are wrapped in different colored skin. I am a surgeon, and I know firsthand that once you get below the outer layers of skin, we are all in the same race.

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A lot of interesting information about the passage and implementation of the accountable care act, Obama care

Revisado: 01-31-23

But very much Slanted Toward “progressive“ points of view. They think they know better than those who have reservations about such a sweeping law. A major overhaul of something that affects every individual, healthcare should not be pushed through by a slim majority in the country. In spite of co-pays going from usually 25 or $30 to 4000 or more, The overall costs are way up. A major problem was the necessity to have every Democrat to vote for It. each legislator, got to put in his or her pet project to buy their vote, which which bloated the bill greatly. I think any major change in our laws should have to be at least a little bit bipartisan. Otherwise, a little over half the country is pushing their values over a large minority that is not going to secure our political system if it continues.

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I had no idea how manypeople in this country fair qualify for federal preferences as minorities

Revisado: 11-18-22

There are more than 15 major categories of people who buy birth or ethnicity qualify for preferences by federal law. Almost all of these make no real sense based on any recent discrimination. And there is frequent lobbying by other groups to be included. Most of these preferences make no scientific or historical sense.

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