Tag: politics

Rawls, Civil Disobedience, and Edward Snowden

Rawls, Civil Disobedience, and Edward Snowden

Martin Carcieri

June 15, 2014

Martin Carcieri
Martin Carcieri

Under what conditions does violation of law have the moral legitimacy of civil disobedience? If Edward Snowden were prosecuted in an American court for leaking classified NSA documents to journalists, for example, would his actions be justified under principles of civil disobedience as articulated by John Rawls, the most influential political philosopher of our time? In his third presentation of Rawls’ work to HCSV, Marty Carcieri (Associate Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University) will present Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience and apply it to the case of Edward Snowden.

Humanist Community Forum (2014-06-15): Rawls, Civil Disobedience, and Edward Snowden from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

Big Money Out of Politics

Big Money Out of Politics

Richard Hobbs

May 04, 2014

Move To Amend Santa Clara County (MTA SCC, see http://scc-mta.org/) is currently gathering signatures for a November 2014 county ballot initiative in support of a 28th Amendment to the US Constitution. By eliminating corporate personhood and money as political speech as affirmed by the US Supreme Court in Citizens United as well as predecessor and progeny precedent decisions, Move To Amend hopes to Build Democracy and End Corporate Rule (BDECR), the name of its Political Action Committee. Without campaign finance reform, we will never get any serious reforms in the U.S. Richard Hobbs (the moderator of MTA SCC and BDECR, an immigration attorney, former director of the Office of Human Relations of Santa Clara County, and currently Executive Director of Human Agenda) will present.

Humanist Community Forum (2014-05-04): Big Money Out of Politics (Richard Hobbs) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

The California DISCLOSE Act (S.B. 52)

The California DISCLOSE Act (S.B. 52)

Laurel McClure

April 20, 2014

Laurel McClure (a California Clean Money Campaign volunteer) will discuss the California DISCLOSE Act (S.B. 52), which would require that political ads for local and state candidates, and state propositions, would have to very clearly identify the people, corporations, unions, and/or other organizations that actually contributed the most money for the political ad. S.B. 52 needs to be approved by a 2/3rds majority in the State Assembly this summer (and then be signed by Gov. Brown). So come hear about this very important bill, and how you can help out. (See http://www.caclean.org/)

Humanist Community Forum (2014-04-20): The California DISCLOSE Act (S.B. 52) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

Secular Activism

Secular Activism

Tom Manger

April 13, 2014

The number of non-believers is increasing rapidly. Like all social movements, the laws that represent us lag behind our wishes. However, that is now set to change rapidly as well. Tom Manger will present an update about secular activism in California and nationwide. Mr. Manger is the Legislative Chair for the Secular Coalition for California (http://states.secular.org/states/california), and chair of the Volunteer Management Committee for SecularityUSA (http://www.secularityusa.org).

Humanist Community Forum (2014-04-13): Secular Activism (Tom Manger) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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