Skip to Content

chuck holtman

minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
3 years 37 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 11/08/12 at 05:39 pm in response to Why Republicans won't be moving to Australia (despite their tweets)

Mr. Schoch: Let me say it a different way, in that your thoughtfulness is regularly evident on these pages.

One of the several dangers of subscribing to "American exceptionalism" is assuming its corollary, "It can't happen here." Civilization is a fragile thing, built over centuries, and there are forces that can undermine it in favor of authoritarianisms, and quite more quickly, and especially as a population becomes less engaged in civic thought, more economically straitened, and...

Posted on 10/31/12 at 03:37 pm in response to En France: presidential campaigns

If you didn't know who you were voting for two minutes into this campaign season, you shouldn't get to vote.

Posted on 10/29/12 at 03:19 pm in response to Bill Clinton coming to Minnesota Tuesday

Then why is Clinton coming here?

Posted on 10/26/12 at 01:57 pm in response to Marriage ad unfairly links amendment to school curriculum issue

There are two approaches to parenting.

The first is to teach your kids to think critically and form their own views about society, the world, what their responsibilities are as human beings and how to make meaningful and rewarding lives for themselves. My children grow up under a bombardment of indoctrinating messages with which my spouse and I profoundly disagree. But we feel that if we have done a good parenting job, our kids are equipped to confront, decipher and deflect these...

Posted on 10/24/12 at 05:36 pm in response to Catholic guilt by association: how Minnesota marriage amendment politics hurt Land Stewardship Project

"Leftist political agendas": Introducing immigrant families and others to sustainable farming methods and supporting local economies.

"What the church stands for": Protecting those who sexually molest children.

I'm not so sure these are antithetical, but I'll grant you they are different.

Posted on 10/23/12 at 01:04 pm in response to Black churches get special attention over marriage amendment

"‘I've been working narcotics for two years, and this was one of the worst ones I've dealt with,’ Bloomington Police Detective Christopher Yates said Monday."

Let's just thank our lucky stars that the poor kid wasn't being raised by a same-sex couple. Just think how much worse it could have been ...

Posted on 10/22/12 at 12:51 pm in response to Next debate: Obama, Romney should be asked about the decision to invade Iraq

I trust him to be the person he has been his whole life: a soulless man in an empty suit. His only interest is in further financializing the nation and the world so that more of the social wealth will flow into the pockets of the financializers. The world is not a place where moral guidance is searched and consequences on people are considered; it is a game of Monopoly where concepts of right and wrong do not operate. Without a moral compass and without an interest in governing, Mr Romney...

Posted on 10/17/12 at 10:30 am in response to Voter ID: With no evidence of either a current problem or a credible solution, it's a waste of money

but it implicitly concedes too much by presuming there is an issue suited for rational debate between two views operating in good faith. The form of voter fraud that an ID requirement would address is as close to nonexistent as we can measure. There are myriad other forms of voter fraud, obstacles to voter access and other features of how we conduct campaigns and elections that clearly and profoundly stand in the way of selecting leaders who will represent the will and interests of the...

Posted on 10/12/12 at 11:43 am in response to Debate winner: Ryan on style, Biden on substance

Mr Romney routed Mr Obama because he was assertive and did not worry about niceties like respect for Obama or the moderator. Obama was routed because he was respectful and non-assertive. Now Mr Biden loses on style because he was assertive and insensitive to Mr Ryan's feelings? Biden spoke from the heart with decades of wisdom at easy command. Opposite him was revealed a callow person without any depth of life experience searching his mental inventory for a rote talking point or "...

Posted on 10/08/12 at 03:51 pm in response to The presidential debate, viewed from the left

By confusing two very separate ideas. Chomsky's point is obvious but profound: For those who manage the public discourse, what is most important is policing the boundaries. Notice how the critical issues for whether our society and our world can sustain themselves - economies based on ever-increasing consumption, economic and political models that necessarily concentrate productivity gains among holders of capital, climate change and destruction of nonrenewable resources, mounting...