Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Games with Frontiers

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‘A quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing’
Neville Chamberlain, PM of Great Britain, talking about Czechoslovakia in 1938

Back in 1963 there was an significant milestone in the transition to modern warfare when the the name of the British Ministry of War was changed to the Ministry of Defence. Many other euphemisms about war have been used since then with ‘police actions’, ‘military advisers’ and many others becoming common.

At the same time the absurd situation arose, as the age of empires passed away and the British Empire was dismantled, that the only two remaining true empires, based in Russia and China, posed as anti-imperial powers, with the pejorative description ‘imperialist’ mainly applied by them to Western Powers who had already lost or given away their foreign territories. (more…)

Moving The US Economy Forward By Reversing Its Tax Policies

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Nothing will stir up an argument faster than a discussion on taxes. Doesn’t matter local, state, or federal. One thing is certain: there seems to no longer be a middle ground for those arguing for more, or less. Now it’s all – or nothing.

Not since the days of red-coated overseers has this argument seem to have been met with such furor. One of the troubling reasons is that the people claiming rights to dispense edicts on what they believe one is entitled to keep, believe they have the moral and intellectual argument for it.

We hear routinely that businesses aren’t paying enough, or that other catch phrase, “not paying their fair share.” Well to quote the late Billy Preston, “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.” And what a lot of these people are finding out pretty quickly – nothing is exactly what they are going to be left with if their current pursuits are followed further. (more…)