My kids are out to make themselves satisfied. They will do this by whatever means makes sense to attain their desired goals. They will complain, cry, get angry, cooperate, ask nicely, play on internal feelings of guilt, work for it, lie, negotiate, hit, or sometimes even decide it isn’t worth the costs and move on. Counter to some ideas of peaceful parents, kids aren’t innately kind, good, altruistic or benevolent. They are selfish beings out to get their desires met. This makes them no different from adults.
Tag: conflict
Save Drama for the Big Stuff: Opportunity Cost and Emotional Energy
If we choose to act dramatically about small drama – worthless drama – we sacrifice any ability to handle anything bigger. Worrying, doubting, fighting, and losing sleep over little things like your opinions or your comfort or your current social status will cost you.
The Tragicomedy of Russiagate
Let’s assume — purely for the sake of discussion since no evidence has been made public — that the Russians did it. Note, first, that the “it” looks like the product of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. I’m not going to do what Johnstone, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, and the late Robert Parry have done so well so many times, namely, catalog all the inane acts the Putin-guided Russian intel agencies are said to have committed in order to bring down America. (Start here.) Suffice it to say that if that’s the best Putin can come up with, we have little to worry about.
“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.”
Liberty as a Social Environmental Condition
If liberty is seen as an individual personal freedom, it must contain a proviso that properly constrains it from interfering with the personal freedom of others. Now let us consider defining liberty as a social environmental condition…
The Church of America
“Perhaps we should read the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause — ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion’ — not as a mandated separation of religion and state but as a non-compete clause.”
Unsung Heroes of the Market
Now, you may be thinking: why are you going on and on about such utterly mundane transactions? Why are you celebrating this Lucio guy, who after all is pretty much the same as countless millions of other merchants around the world? But that mundaneness, mis amigos, is precisely the point.
I, Protector
If we place our protection in the charge of sophisticated and powerful machinery (aka government and police states), above any individual autonomy and discretion, we will allow ourselves to become dominated by self-created protection systems.
Simple Self-Defense Moves You Can Master
Ever wondered how you would react in case of a sudden unforeseeable physical attack? If you and your loved ones were to face sudden and unstoppable harm, would you be able to stand in its way? Modern society inflicts a false sense of security upon modern-day citizens when in reality the dangers of malevolent incidents such as burglaries, robberies or pure hooliganism are just as real now as they were in medieval ages.
The Worst Thing About Federal Government “Shutdowns”
The case for government is, usually, that it does things that must be done and that can’t be done by any other organization. Designating an activity “non-essential” is just another way of saying it’s a way of wasting money on something either unnecessary or better left to the market.