I was talking with some church friends last night about the frustrating cycle of history found in the Biblical stories. People turn to violence and injustice and fall to violence and injustice again and again, cycle after cycle. It’s really depressing. If you look more broadly, you can find the same cycle of failure and redemption and new failure in stories and in history. We see the same evils coming back again and again. And there is no guarantee that good done now will obviously last forever.
Tag: children
On Dishonesty
Honesty is a practice that many parents try to teach their children. Unfortunately, many of these same parents do two things that teach the opposite.
Trump’s Middle East Delusions Persist
“There are no perfect solutions.” This is true. Past injustices can never be fully rectified. But “solutions” can be closer to or further from perfection, and we know which Team Trump’s solution will be.
Compulsory Schooling Laws: What if We Didn’t Have Them?
We should always be leery of laws passed “for our own good,” as if the state knows better. The history of compulsory schooling statutes is rife with paternalism, triggered by anti-immigrant sentiments in the mid-nineteenth century and fueled by a desire to shape people into a standard mold.
On Mortality and Children
Today, I didn’t listen to any podcasts or audiobooks or music. I just walked in silence. The cemetery air was a little heavier than usual, and I got to thinking about mortality. It only took me a few minutes of initial discomfort to come to terms with my own mortality. It took me a little more time and discomfort to come to terms with the mortality of my wife and peers. Then an awful thought popped into my head. My children will die someday. I can’t begin to explain how dreadfully this hit me.
Living Wage, Protesting Organized Crime, & Parental Supremacy (17m) – Editor’s Break 095
Editor’s Break 095 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: whether the minimum wage should be a living wage; protesting Judge Kavanaugh by vandalizing his house and otherwise protesting organized crime; parental supremacy and the demand for children to serve their parents; and more.
Schools Are Tracking Your Child’s Mental Health—Whether You Like It or Not
A worrying trend is emerging in schools across the country. With increasing regularity, school districts are tracking students’ mental health and raising flags if a screening shows something amiss.
On Gun Policy
Gun control advocates like to talk about the “costs” of gun policy by citing homicide, suicide, and accidental gun death/injury statistics. Something about the concept of “costs” as it concerns issues like this doesn’t sit right with me.
Boys Will Be Boys
We anarchists tend to think that government itself is bad, that a plethora of bureaucrats are bad, that politicians are creeps — and so they are. But the worst part of any human endeavor are those who cannot follow objective, natural rules of not invading the lives of others, in narcissistically treating any circumstance as their Xanadu.
Discipline, Homeschooling Intolerance, Politics and Development (23m) – Editor’s Break 091
Editor’s Break 091 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: what it means to discipline a child and whether he’d be okay with other people disciplining his children; what to do about your anger or prejudice toward a loved one who has decided to keep their children home from school; how politics, the use of violence in society, can affect societal and economic development; and more.