In a 1939 book review, as Hitler’s regime threatened Europe, George Orwell wrote of a recently published volume by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, “If there are certain passages of [the book] which seem rather empty, that is merely to say that we have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious […]
The Constitution can’t save us. We must save it.
On the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, we who opposed his election face a simple question: What is there left to do? It is perhaps easier to know what we will not do: We will not seek by violent insurrection to overturn a free and fair election. Nor will we disrupt the tradition of peacefully […]
The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump — an act repugnant to anyone who honors and values the ideas, habits, and practices of democracy — cleanses nothing. Trump, a man of base character and a would-be authoritarian who disregards the norms of republican self-government while seeking to gain office by casting doubt on election […]
The huddled masses gathered at a nondescript Charlotte business park just before Independence Day to help renew America. Sixty people from three dozen countries, seemingly of every hue, color, age, and background, became flesh-and-blood representatives of e pluribus unum as they sat together on folding chairs in a fluorescent-lit conference room while a middling official […]
It’s difficult to overstate the contempt Charlotte’s government feels for its citizens. Though disdain for the people is widely distributed among our elected officials, high-ranking bureaucrats, and well-connected members of the governing class, perhaps no one personifies it like Assistant City Manager Tracy Dodson, whose duties as director of economic development require her to act […]
A Hobbesian darkness animates the narrative that bolsters law enforcement’s political legitimacy. Danger lurks everywhere, we’re told, and each of us, at any moment, might find ourselves victimized in a menacing world where everyone, left to their own devices, will indulge their natural-born instinct to engage in the English philosopher’s “war of all against all” […]
Charlotte cops punched and pummeled a woman at a public bus stop on a public street, but they insisted on privacy when discussing their assault upon her, and we, as a political community, went along. After a few of his officers beat Christina Pierre in November 2023, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Chief Johnny Jennings announced plans […]
No matter how hard he strives for celebrity, a politician shouldn’t be judged by the standards of a Tiger Beat cover boy. Jeff Jackson, a Democratic congressman from Charlotte who’s running for state attorney general, first entered public office in 2014 when party members named him to a vacant seat in the North Carolina Senate. […]
Charlotte cops beat the hell out of Christina Pierre, and now it’s time for the commonwealth to take a few blows. By now the story is well known: On November 17, Pierre and Anthony Lee, Pierre’s partner and co-worker, sat at a public bus stop in Steele Creek after their shifts ended at a nearby […]
Charlotte Citizen 