For an adult who wasn’t taught to identify their emotions and own them as their own, spanking or swatting is, unfortunately, the easiest way to respond to a child who has triggered us. We are literally being exactly like a child when we hit. We are in our child minds because we were not taught a better way.
Tag: cooperation
Talk to, Don’t Provoke, North Korea
There’s little more we can do than hope that some cool heads around Donald Trump are telling him he’d be nuts to attack North Korea. I don’t know who they might be. Still, we must hope.
An Argument for a Stateless Society
The state fundamentally violates the non-aggression principle. Only its death can absolve its infringement, and I think this simple fact alone is more than enough justification for its termination.
Defending a Free Nation
Most societies, at least in this century, handle the problem of national defense by having a large, well-armed, permanent military force, run by a centralized government, funded by taxation, and often (though not always) manned by conscription. Is this a solution that a free nation can or should follow?
Things to Keep in Mind During the Health Care Debate
Politicians, of course, can declare a right to medical care, but those are mere words. What counts is what happens after the declaration. Since a system in which everyone could have, on demand, all the medical care they wanted at no cost would be unsustainable, the so-called right to medical care necessarily translates into the power of politicians and bureaucrats to set the terms under which medical services and products may be provided and received.
The Cultural Expression of Social Cooperation
So-called multiculturalism – understood as a purely voluntary phenomenon – is simply the cultural expression of social cooperation based on productive specialization and division of labor, which is bound to take on an increasingly important role in a globalized, human-capital-based economy.
Authority and Morality
The decisions people make and the directions that people go in may in the end not serve them or lead to the kind of results that they want, but that is for each person to discover on their own. Advice can be given, suggestions can be made, but ultimately each person must walk their own path themselves. To try to play games of authority is to attempt to ignore all of this.
When Civility Isn’t Enough
On the memo line of every check I sent to the various “revenue” gangs, I wrote “extortion payment” beside my account number. The State of Colorado never seemed to notice, but the woman in the city “revenue” office noticed, and it really bothered her. She repeatedly called me to complain or get an explanation. A time or two she even came into my store to confront me face to face. I was nice. I was polite. I was civil. But I stood my ground.
People: Resource or Burden?
People do not merely consume and pollute. They also create; they produce. They find ways to turn negatives into positives. For example, the methane gas produced by landfills is now turned into energy. Ores which were of no economic value, now produce valuable minerals. People find ways to produce more efficiently. Today’s computers are vastly more powerful than those of a decade or two ago, and are also smaller; they use less material; they consume less energy per amount of work; and they further allow us to reduce the use of materials and energy for other purposes, in a virtuous cycle.
Women Should Stay Out of Politics
The lack of representation of women in government ought to be a source of pride, one of the highest compliments that can be paid to the gender. Instead of encouraging more women to be engaged in the political process, coalitions ought to encourage men – encourage all – to abandon the political process in exchange for the peaceful and voluntary cooperation and association indicative of a civilized people, a way of living women ought to be proud to have mastered.