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Malice never was his aim, He lash'd the vice but spar'd the name. No individual could resent, Where thousands equally were meant. His satyr points at no defect, But what all mortals may correct; For he abhorr'd that senseless tribe, Who call it humor when they jibe. --Jonathan Swift, “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift” The English language has never produced a satirist equal to Jonathan Swift. It hasn’t even come close. Taken together, Swift’s major satires—Gulliver’s Travels, The Battle of the

As expected of every election season, political gaffes were bound to happen. Gaffes have been associated with campaign exhaustion, an unsuccessful attempt at humor, or a lack of emotional discipline. Aside from acting as fodder for jokes or fuel for opponents, flubs made by political leaders and candidates alike can create a personal insight that their political image would not allow. Scott Walker Even after a successful 2014 reelection bid, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) still managed to la

“Anarchy—shall I say, is the worst of all governments? No: Anarchy is the absence of all government; it is the antipodes  of order; it is the acme of confusion; it is the result of unbridled license, the antipodes of true liberty. The Apostle Paul says truly: ‘For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.’ At first this is a startling statement. Even the monopoly of the one-man-power as in Russia , or the monopoly of the aristocracy as in other parts of Europe, or the

Primaries, despite all appearances, are actually necessary as vehicles of Democracy. Most readers of IVN have a general idea of what primaries are and how they function. However, I would argue that the benefits of primaries are rarely, if ever, mentioned. The reason for this is because they are old and we, as a society, have forgotten why they were necessary. U.S. Parties The United States electoral system is unique. There are few if any modern countries that can boast the stability and the c

On Sunday, November 9, former congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) published a post on The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity's website, discussing the political ramifications of the 2014 midterm elections. Ron Paul made it clear before the results came in on Tuesday that he believed that no matter who secured control of the Senate on election night, nothing was going to change because the major parties have a monopoly on the U.S. political process. "Yes, power shifted, I wrote. But the philoso

"No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen."  -- U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 3, Clause 3 Every once in a while we get to see a politician jump across state lines to take advantage of an open Senate or House seat -- Hillary Clinton's successful senatorial bid in New York has been a high-profile recent

No one party is going to hold the majority for long. For all the rhetoric from the vice president, by the end of Election Day, the results were not that surprising. The Democrats were not going to keep control forever and the Republicans need to realize neither will they. Now that the midterms are over, the next tough pill to swallow are the next two months of watching and waiting to see what comes out of the 2014 lame duck Congress. These 5 areas will show how far the Republicans can reach acr

On Tuesday, Californians went to the polls to determine the legislative makeup of the world's 9th largest economy. Democrats held onto every statewide office, including the governorship, where Jerry Brown was re-elected to an unprecedented fourth term. However, down the ballot, Democrats were unable to hold onto key seats, like Sharon Quirk-Silva in Assembly District 65 and Jose Solorio in Senate District 34. Assembly Districts 16, 17 and 39 were too close to call Wednesday as mail-in and provi

The main talk of the 2014 election has been which political party will control the Senate after the votes have been counted. Democrats have been on defense throughout most of the country as President Obama's approval rating remains low. So with just a week to go before Election Day, how will the numbers fall? Here are my predictions. In this election cycle, Democrats have 38 seats that are safe or not up for re-election while Republicans have 42. So that is where my numbers start.Democrats are

No matter what political ideology a voter identifies with, every single election comes down to one thing: voter turnout. If voters don't go to the polls to cast ballots, their party affiliation, or lack thereof, doesn't matter. But which states have the worst turnouts and why?According to Nonprofit Vote, a group that works with nonprofit organizations to increase voting opportunities, in 2010, there were about 91 million votes cast across the country, which means that approximately 42 percent o