There is a culture among academics to be obscure. If you're too clear, you can't be saying anything interesting. The issue isn't word length. The issue is a commitment to speaking in a way an audience can understand.

A culture without property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not freedom.

We are on the cusp of this time where I can say, "I speak as a citizen of the world" without others saying, "God, what a nut."

I'm all for experimenting with sortition - randomly selected representative bodies of citizens. But I don't favor direct democracy. We're busy. We have lives. There is reddit. Who has time to work out the right answer to the thousand policy choices a gov't must make all the time?

The popular choice is not elected as president.

There's no reason for the electors to overrule the popular choice.

We always build on the past; the past always tries to stop us.