Democracy requires a commitment to dialogue and deliberation, as well as a commitment to seek peaceful solutions. Is democracy possible in states that earn significant portions of their revenue from the manufacture and sales of arms, that give weapons away in huge numbers, and that turn quickly to violence in the face of difficulties? The proliferation of weapons is nearly as great a tragedy of the commons as global warming, and the evidence indicates that civilians are increasingly being...
One out of every thirty five women born is killed for cultural or sexual reasons. In the twentieth century more women were killed for those reasons than all the people who died in wars. Women everywhere live in the higher stages of Gregory Stanton's eight stage genocide scale. Pornography contributes to the peril, whether in the form of battlefield rape films, the rape chants of frat boys, or the massive distribution of violent images on the web and through other media. The United Nations...