Anti-gun bigots have a “new” favorite strawman. They demand to know why the right to own and carry weapons (they’ll sometimes mischaracterize this as “Second Amendment rights”) is more important than the right to not be murdered. The dishonesty– or ignorance– displayed by such a question is absolutely stunning.
Tag: ignorance
“Socialism”: The Provocative Equivocation
The socialists are back, but is it a big deal? It’s tempting to say that it’s purely rhetorical. Modern socialists don’t want to emulate the Soviet Union. To them, socialism just means “Sweden,” right? Even if their admiration for Sweden is unjustified, we’ve long known that the Western world contains millions of people who want their countries to be like Sweden. Why should we care if Sweden-fans rebrand themselves as “socialists”?
Everything Dies Baby, That’s a Fact
Nebraska is the only good album by Bruce Springsteen. But that’s not the point of this post. This post is about death. For something good to happen, something has to die. Harsh but true.
Governing Least‘s Immigration Oversight
Dan Moller’s Governing Least barely mentions immigration. But it should have, because of its strong implications for this hugely important issue. Applying Moller’s approach, there is not only a moral presumption in favor of open borders, but a host of residual obligations that accompany even justified restrictions on immigration.
Governing Least: A Litany of Insight
“The reason France does not require aid is not because some external group took pity on the French, but that they were able to generate exponential economic growth themselves. This makes it puzzling that philosophers write long books about aid without mentioning economic growth, and generally seem to imply that the path to escaping poverty lies through individual altruism. Why ignore the only mechanism that has ever succeeded in lifting millions of people out of poverty when thinking about poverty?”
“Intellectual”
These people may be clever. They may be smart in some ways. But their ignorance and emotionalism overwhelm their intellect. They betray their own intellectualism with their belief system. They’ve decided which is more important to them, personally. And it’s a shame.
There’s No Way to Know Everything
It’s enough to know when something violates other people’s rights and liberty; to understand I have no right to violate others even if I can’t know with certainty how things would go if no one violates them.
Poverty and Success
Poverty is not the fault of billionaires or of “greedy capitalists” or of some systemic injustice that keeps “po’ folks” down. Poverty is the natural and predictable result of ongoing poor choices, and until people realize this and start taking responsibility for their own culpability in their financial situations, we will continue to hear the growing chorus of complainers demanding political intervention to redistribute money from those who earned it to those who did not.
Good Intentions, or Not
I have no doubt that many “citizen” statists have good intentions. They are misguided by their ignorance but their intentions are mainly admirable. They may even align with mine. However, that doesn’t apply to politicians.
What Educators Can Learn from “I, Pencil”
For self-directed learners, their creative energies are uninhibited. They are not controlled by a mastermind or a group of omniscient rulers who believe they know what is best for others. Self-directed learners retain their creative spirit, that zest for learning which is so apparent in young children but is often eroded through years of forced education.