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"Tradition?? The only good traditions are food traditions. The rest are repressive."

"There are two ways to think. The first is to trust to your ancestors, your religious leaders, or your charismatic professors. The second is to question, to challenge, to explore history for meanings, and to analyze issues. This latter is called Critical Thinking, and it is this that is the mission of my web site. "

Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman  

November 2023

Minorities that Benefit Democracy

Democracy is based on the free and fair election of majority rule. In autocracies, minorities rule: either a dictator or a minority party. However, another element of democracies is gradual change, usually proposed by a minority recognized over time as right. How else can we account for the changes that western civilization has experienced over time.

Slavery, for example, was considered a universal institution for centuries. Different civilizations practiced it in different ways. more...

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Male Throwbacks


There is sorrow, but no surprise, at Afghanistan?s fanatical Muslim treatment of women. The Taliban government represents the worst culture and religion of the past. The Taliban men preside over a dying nation with a crashing birthrate, with the few trapped competent people slipping out of the country.

The documentary recently aired on MSNBC, "Ayenda," tells the story of the Afghan women?s soccer team that escaped from the Taliban?s hellhole. The film underscores the terri more...

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April 2023

How Goes It With Women Around the World?

I am writing this on International Women?s Day, March 8, a holiday I remember well from its start in 1975. In 1999, I was heading the UN Association of San Francisco, responsible for public lecturing about UN issues: what the UN can and cannot do.

The UN can set standards, but has no real enforcement mechanism, such as stopping a war or protecting citizens from abuse. It can provide help in emergencies: such as food in a famine, aid in natural disasters, and programs that provide more...

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September 2022

American Unjust Justice Problems (1 of 2)

One of the most important elements of fair government, supported by the majority of the governed, is justice. This is so basic that even small children protest when decisions or actions are "not fair." Revolutions often begin because of some very unfair action of governments: for example, when a policeman slapped a street vendor in Tunisia and arbitrarily seized his vegetable stand.

The vendor set himself on fire. The Tunisians had finally had enough of unfair police, corrupt off more...

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The Constitution and Minority Rule


What defines us as Americans is the Constitution. We are not one race, one gender, or only native-born, conditions that identify most older societies in the world. We are united by an idea: the idea that we can rule ourselves, that we can hold fair elections, and that we can have a peaceful transfer of power. We never anticipated losers who whine, lie, and refuse to step down.

We are obviously not living up to those ideals today. Our two political parties are no longer ho more...

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Critical Race Theory Conspiracy


The Republican "Base," the followers of Donald Trump, are scornful of "elites," by which they mean educated. Elites once included the rich and powerful, but these categories don?t bother the true believers as much as the "intellectuals."

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is the product of scholar-advocates in the 1970s and 1980s at university level, who were interested in exploring how law and other forms of public policy could secure and protect civil rights, yet simultaneously more...

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Saving America?s Democracy (2 of 2)

In Reviewing the Index of Democracies for 2022, we can see the difference between Total Democracies and Flawed Democracies, a position that the United States currently holds.

Why do the countries at the top of the list succeed while we flail? We can see that the winning countries are all small and have a single culture that makes governing easy. Political parties are mostly either centrist liberal or centrist conservative, making for less contentious issues. Although most of these more...

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