As professors, current events often provide "teachable moments." For politicians, they provide what we might call "seizable moments." President Obama seems to be faced with a few of them right now: an election-generated seizable moment whereby he ought to be able to resist calls to cut Social Security and continue tax cuts on the wealthy; a Sandy-generated seizable moment to take more serious action to curb global climate change; and a Newtown-generated seizable moment to do something about gun control. Unfortunately, I'm only seeing movement on the third (a suggestion he will back Senator Diane Feinstein's bill to ban assault weapons); he seems to be backsliding on the first and mum on the second. Arguably, it is the third issue that seems to have the most people and emotion behind it. So, we can blame Obama for not having a stronger spine to follow through on what he said he woudl do (and I do blame him for that). Or, we can blame ourselves for not making more of a stink about the other two issues. As philosophers, do we have a role to play? Or are we too analytical to fire up an emotion-driven populace in order to spur the President to seize the seizable moments?
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