Updated 12.31.23

Hi! I hold a PhD in sociology from the large public university in the South with expertise in criminology and criminal justice, law and society, and political economy. I’m on the faculty of a public university in the Midwest. In my academic work, I research and teach on, among other things, crime and justice, political sociology, race and ethnicity, and the sociology of religion.

I started Freedom and Reason in 2006 because I came to believe that it was important to make my ideas available to audiences beyond academic outlets and the classrooms. It was originally launched on Blogger (a Google product) but due to frustration with that platform and sporadic activity due to my duties as chair of my department, which at the time involved a bottom up revision of the program, program review, and rebuilding the faculty, it languished.

I was spurred to regularly blog again after witnessing the results of the migrant crisis in Sweden in 2018. I also stepped down a chair (to let my younger colleagues have a go at governance). I moved my blogging to WordPress, a much superior application.

The move from Blogger has meant rebuilding my audience, and a lot of work curating and migrating the best of my previous work on Blogger to WordPress (work that is still in progress) but, so far, it’s been worth it. Given Google’s practice of censoring views challenging the dominant narrative, I realize now I probably saved a lot of work from disappearing through deplatforming. WordPress is a much more open system.

Over the last six years (as of December 31, 2023), Freedom and Reason has enjoyed more than 38 thousand views from around the world. This year has been the most successful, with 10,724 views from 4,326 visitors, averaging 2.48 views per visitor. I recognize that these are not large numbers, but I am pleased that my work is being read by a sizable group of people—and that they’re reading more than one essay.

I want to take a moment to clarify my worldview since it has become clear that too many people are incapable of the charity required to actually understand another person’s political and other commitments.

When I write about January 6, 2021, my critique of the mainstream narrative is mistaken for rightwing partisanship, my analysis perceived to be hailing from a conservative standpoint. I remind those critics that I make the same critique with respect to the counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) that the FBI conducted against the black struggle for civil rights—and that the critique of COINTELPRO is interpreted as left-wing partisanship by those on the political right. I make the same critique with respect to Operation Mockingbird program, a CIA program designed to propagandize the American public. The critique of Operation Mockingbird is interpreted as rightwing partisanship by those on the left.

The politics attributed to me in these and other cases—critical race theory, gender ideology, medical freedom, reproductive rights, whatever—depend on the observer’s partisan standpoint. If they view the critique as against their position, or harming their choice of comrades, then I’m a partisan antagonist. If they view the critique as supporting their side, then they see me as an ally—until they see that, on other issues, I’m not their ally.

This is the problem with operating on the basis of checklists. I don’t check boxes. I work from a standpoint that sees truth not as constructed but as the result of tearing away ideological distortions.

The inability to detect the principle that guides my style of social criticisms produces a cognitive dissonance usually resolved by attaching to me the least favorable partisan label—because how could anybody on the left hold a rightwing position or vice-versa?—and then not considering my arguments or refusing to push out my content (although I have seen my arguments used without attribution).

So what am I? Ethically, I am a secular humanist with left-libertarian sensibilities; I’m an atheist and a liberal. Intellectually, I’m a scientific materialist with humanist commitments. Concerning matters of natural history, I’m a Darwinist. Concerning anthropological and sociological matters, I’m a Marxist. Politically, I’m democratic-republican, i.e., populist-nationalist. All this indicates that I’m a man of the left. The problem, of course, is that the self-described left, i.e., the woke progressive, has become authoritarian and illiberal. Frankly, I don’t recognize the left today. But I recognize my politics.

You may use the table of contents on the lefthand side to navigate to posts that interest you. I moderate comments, so if you wish to communicate with me but don’t want your comment to publicly appear be sure to let me know in the comment and I will not publish it. I appreciate comments. Subscribe to my blog and, if you do, like the content. Share with others. This will help me reach more people with my takes on authoritarianism, censorship, class, crime, culture, economics, media and propaganda, politics, race, and religion. Thank you for taking the time to check out my blog.