Erich J. Prince is a co-founder and the editor at Merion West. Erich has written for a variety of publications including The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Hartford Courant, The News & Observer, and the Orlando Sentinel. His writing has been honored with two awards from the Columbia University School of Journalism. He studied political science at Yale, completing his thesis on the history of polarization in the United States Congress. Contact Erich at erich@merionwest.com.
“To tell you the truth, I am drawn to these dangerous events even though they scare the hell out of me. I am sure a shrink would have a field day with that…I guess there is an adrenaline rush in trying to capture images under dangerous situations and making it out alive.”
“People working at the local level are indeed the people who understand how to make the federal government more responsive…”
“But instead, universities have been captured by a destructive ideology of victimhood that insists that to be a female or a minority on an American college campus is to be the target of endless, nonstop oppression.”
“Let’s say somebody is solidly in favor of abortion rights. She feels very strongly. Okay? But how can she learn to persuade anyone on the issue if she never even hears the other side of the argument?”
“You cited the race between Romney and Obama and that the Independents seemed to choose one or the other. My question for the political scientists would be: ‘Who was the Independent in that race?'”
“The Bush period and the approaches we took then, in many respects, are directly related to an era of American politics that came and went.”
“It’s what Irving Babbitt meant when he wrote that happiness is to be found in work if at all. Or why John Adams would write that he was happiest on days he felt most purposeful.”
“People behave themselves for one of two reasons: love of God, or fear of punishment. There’s not much that politicians can do about the former, but the latter is in our wheelhouse.”
“My point was always, ‘Look, this is the hook.’ Piracy is the hook, if you want to get people interested in Somalia’s problems and the region’s problems; you’re not going to get them to read a World Food Programme treatise.”
Some argue that minimum wage laws should be differentiated by both industry and region. After all, it doesn’t cost as much to live in Macon, Georgia as it does to live in New York City.
A woman, who had a Pennsylvania carry permit, gets arrested in New Jersey, not knowing that they don’t issue carry permits—and certainly not to out-of-state residents.
“I think it’s awful. It’s shocking what people are willing to accept just because everyone else in their community goes along.”
“But the columns that stick with us most of all rarely touch on the polls or the name-calling. Instead, they might be retired Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Bill Lyon’s ‘viewpoints’ columns, which chronicle the dissolution of his memory as he suffers from Alzheimer’s.”
“I changed my major from theater to film because, in many of my auditions, I was typecast as a drug dealer or a murderer, and that changed my perception of what people thought a black man was.”
“I’m a Vietnam era veteran myself. The stigma of suicide today is only a fraction of what it was back then…Times are changing, and we are trying to meet those changes to get people taken care of in a timely way.”
