Individual lives matter. All individual lives. (I’m not convinced collective “lives” have any reality.) But some people choose to throw their life away by making self-defense against them necessary– resulting in the loss of their life. If you force someone to kill you in defense you seem to be saying your life doesn’t matter to you.
Category: Blogs
The official Everything-Voluntary.com blog.
Five Rules for Studying History
“History” is a product of human beings. History of the same events and people may be done (will be done) differently from generation to generation. Sometimes, due to advances in archaeology or new discoveries of old texts, history done 500 years after the fact will be better than history done 100 years later. Similarly, changes in dominant ideology might make later history less reliable than earlier historical works. Best to read histories from multiple perspectives and times.
Kamala Harris’s Problem Isn’t Her Identity; It’s Her Character
As you no doubt know by now, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has chosen US Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his running mate. You’ve probably also noticed the first salvo of Republican attacks on Harris: She’s “not really black,” and she may not even be a “natural born citizen” as required by the Constitution to hold the office of president or vice president. No one sane or intelligent finds either of these attacks convincing.
“Prussian” Indoctrination – The Other Side
In doing a little searching for “The Prussian model” of schooling, I ran across an essay that claims to expose “The Invented History of ‘The Factory Model of Education’”. It’s important to get the other side, so I read it and I’ll give you my thoughts here.
Powerful Ideas Trump Good Ideas
I used to believe in the marketplace of ideas. That in a free society, ideas compete and the most accurate one wins. I don’t believe this anymore, or maybe it is more accurate to say that I do believe that the best idea wins, but not the most accurate.
Krugman and Growth Agnosticism
Krugman‘s apparent embrace of this growth agnosticism is doubly puzzling. After a lifetime of study, a brilliant Nobel laureate still lacks anything useful to say about fostering growth? How is that even possible?
Democracy is Divisive and Hateful
One of the worst attributes of democracy is how it turns regular people who would otherwise have no problem with one another into bitter enemies.
Hope and Despair in Nearly Equal Parts
I’ve been observing and listening to what people around me are saying concerning recent events. It’s been interesting.
CNN: “Scientific” Means “Agrees With Us”
“Trump adds coronavirus adviser who echoes his unscientific claims,” reports CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Ms. Collins’s Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Political Science from the University of Alabama may not put her in the same league as Dr. Atlas when it comes to proffering scientific and medical judgments.
Let’s Adapt to Something Positive
Humans are adaptable. More so than any creature other than, possibly, cockroaches. It’s our greatest strength. We have adapted to living almost everywhere on the planet and, soon, with the right technology — an adaptation we’ve created — off-planet, too. We’ve adapted to a different diet than our ancestors ate. In some cases, we probably…