About Chris Dick

Chris rides on his digital sway-backed donkey tilting his lance, quixotically at all sorts of causes -- some hopeless, some perhaps -- not. I enjoy your feedback. Long live rational debate.
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Streamlining with UBI

By |2020-08-02T01:46:17-04:00August 2nd, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , , , |

Streamlining Government with UBI Fairness Left and Right As a good controversialist, I’m always on the lookout for arguments that strengthen my advocacy for a Universal Basic Income. I am particularly interested in ‘justice’ arguments because fairness, far more than feasibility, is the sticking point for many people who have not delved deeply into the intricacies of this immensely important policy prescription. I got thinking again about fairness while I was listening to a lengthy rant on the radio the other day that, on the surface, had nothing to do with UBI. [...]

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UBI is Liberation

By |2020-07-22T20:25:55-04:00July 21st, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , , , |

Liberation Not Slavery Universal Basic Income Frees Us to Pursue Meaningful Contributions In one of the more thoughtless, knee-jerk, poorly researched commentaries I have seen in some time,  Chris Nelson, a writer for the Calgary Herald, purports to slay the dragon of creeping socialism by slamming Universal Basic Income.  Among other things, he said,  “Of course we are told handing out money to those below a certain income threshold will save cash because it negates other current social assistance programs. But it won’t. Schemes like this never do… ...So, introducing a basic national [...]

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COVID vs the Flu

By |2020-07-21T18:54:35-04:00July 13th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , , |

COVID-19 Versus Influenza Just Plain Wrong Costs Lives What do we call people who think COVID is at worst a hoax, and at least over-hyped? They are not so much Corona deniers as they are diminishers. What’s the fuss?  Nothing out of the ordinary here. The annual flu kills more people worldwide than COVID has so far. Governments are either acting like old ladies with the vapors or plotting to restrict our freedoms for a host of nefarious reasons -- please fill in the blank with your favorite conspiracy theory.   To make [...]

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America Great Again?

By |2020-07-13T22:47:35-04:00June 25th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , , |

Make America Great Again? What does that mean? What should it mean? I see the hats, and I see the tee-shirts. I see the eager faces, mostly white, not young -- ‘make America Great Again”, the logos read as the people gather, COVID defiant, at Trump rallies.   I hear Paul Simon’s lines echoing in my head, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?  Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”  There should be tee-shirts that say ‘I want the 1950s back’.  These Trumpers sense that America is in decline,  -- 'the [...]

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Universal Basic Income

By |2022-07-03T21:56:36-04:00June 23rd, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , |

Yes, a Universal Basic Income. The welfare state, as currently constituted, can’t handle what’s coming, and hasn't handled what's happened in the past forty years. The fragility of the structure has been evident for a while to those with eyes to see. It is not dealing effectively with the decline in permanent, well-paying, benefit-providing, full-time jobs. It is not responding well to the steady rise in income inequality since the 1970s. It is also wholly unprepared for the tsunami of job losses that are coming courtesy of what Martin Ford calls in his eponymous book, The Rise [...]

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‘All’ or ‘Black’ Lives?

By |2020-06-25T22:08:22-04:00June 19th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , |

'All Lives Matter'? Sigh. Bromides versus Calls-to-Action This back and forth between “Black Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter” puzzles me. It is everywhere in comment threads all over the web, but these statements are not at all congruent.  ‘All Lives Matter’ is a banal truism, a first-order motherhood statement, too broad to generate any action or advocacy. Can you seriously envision people marching in the streets carrying signs saying “murder is bad!” Who are we kidding here! Spectators would titter and yawn and go back to watching the Bachelorette. To broaden a problem [...]

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