In case anyone’s forgotten, Russia is a nuclear power. Throwing around the phrase “act of war” is over-the-top insanity. It’s a call for the transformation of some Facebook ads into burning cities and piles of body bags, all because an election didn’t come out the way some people wanted and expected it to.
Tag: america
“Daddy, What’s a Citizen?”
This question is not as easy to answer for me as it once was. Before understanding the facts about government, I would have answered to the effect of , “A citizen is someone who is a recognized subject of the government.” *almost vomits* (My apologies, but that was very difficult to write.) Or rather, in a way understandable to an 8-year-old. Today, that’s not the answer that I can honestly give. So at first, I resisted, and made a few jokes. I needed to time to think on it. While we were brushing our teeth, the following ensued.
Is Education Worth It? My Opening Statement
Is the education system really a waste of time and money, as my new book claims right on the cover? This is a strange topic to debate with Eric Hanushek. Why? Because if Hanushek had absolute power to fix the education system, education might actually be worth every penny. Hanushek is famous for focusing on what schools teach rather than what they spend – and documenting the vast disconnect between the two. If you haven’t already read his dissection of “input-based education policies,” you really ought to. Hanushek, more than any other economist, has taught us that measured literacy and numeracy are socially valuable – but just making kids spend long years in well-funded schools is not.
Don’t Blame the Guns, Blame the Schools
Today’s public schools already share many characteristics with prisons, yet the ‘answer’ some folks are proposing to the (statistically negligible) threat of school shootings is to make schools even more like prisons. Schools are an artificial environment that (much like a prison) forces kids to join gangs or cliques in order to avoid rejection and outsider status. Those who don’t fit in are subject to ridicule, abuse, and even brutality in some cases.
Why We Must “Politicize” Guns
Every time there’s a mass shooting, or even a particularly well-publicized single homicide, all of America’s political factions go directly to battle stations on the question of whether or not the violence can be reduced or eliminated with “gun control” legislation. As the debate rages on, the calls begin to ring out from different corners that whatever else we do, we must avoid “politicizing” the issue. Have you ever noticed that the “let’s not get political” talk always seems to emanate from the side that perceives itself as on the losing end of the argument at the moment?
Abortion, Gun Control, Phone Spying, & Trump’s Militarism (27m) – Editor’s Break 060
Editor’s Break 060 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: the distinction of libertarian political philosophy from libertarian legal philosophy, the practice of abortion, where he comes down personally on the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate, Walter Block’s evictionism compromise, Richard Dawkins on gun control, the FBI on the possibility of China spying on Americans through their phones, and Trump’s insane militarism.
“Peace Through Strength” Is a Racket
“I’m going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody — absolutely nobody — is gonna to mess with us,” Trump says. On other occasions he’s said similar things: “We want to defer, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength” (same link) and, a year ago, “Nobody is going to mess with us. Nobody. It will be one of the greatest military build-ups in American history.”
Influences IV
This is another disparate group of influences, R. Buckminster Fuller, Edward Tufte, Douglas Hofstadter. The first is from the 60s, the second from the 90s, and the third from the first decade of the 21st Century, in the order that they came into my life. But all three think outside of the boxes which have contained so many of us.
No Huawei! US Spy Chiefs Reverse Course on Phone Spying
Testifying before the US Senate Intelligence Committee, officials from the FBI, CIA, NSA, et al. warned Americans against using phones made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE. Why? Because, Christopher Wray (Comey’s successor at the FBI) explains, the Chinese government might equip, or find and exploit weaknesses in, such phones to “maliciously modify or steal information” and “conduct undetected espionage.”
Nonsense on Stilts
An English proverb holds that a lie can be halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on. It also appears to be the case that a government can be shot through with corruption before the ink is dried on its Constitution.