When you undergo a medical procedure or volunteer for a research study, you’re presented with forms to sign, outlining what’s going to happen (and what bad things could happen), and expressly consenting to have those things happen. If you’re accused of rape, “he or she didn’t physically resist” isn’t an acceptable defense. In fact, express consent is the emerging standard, sometimes to seemingly ridiculous degrees (i.e. re-requesting consent at each stage of an encounter). Consent, I think we can agree, is a big deal in America today.
Tag: independence
Politics and Violence Go Hand in Hand
As America’s latest long hot summer drags into autumn, politicians and pundits are getting louder and more shrill in their denunciations of political violence. Considering the sources, those denunciations smack of hypocrisy.
Far Left Utopia, Billionaires, Censorship, & “Government is Good” (31m) – Episode 321
Episode 321 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following entries to r/shitstatistssay: ross-cross writes, “libertarianism is a childish far left utopia it doesn’t include much from right besides guns”; Franklin Veaux writes, “Libertarianism can be summed up as ‘I want to profit from group cooperative effort that benefits everyone, but don’t you dare tell me that I should have to contribute to the cooperative effort from which I am making money!'”; steveandthesea writes, “There is literally no ethical way to become a billionaire”; EatTheBugsBigot writes, “Corporate censorship is worse than government censorship”; and Jshbone12 writes (and the_Blind_Samurai elaborates on), “Government is good.”
Politics Reason Behind a Lot of Anger
Politics forces everyone along the same path. Legislation dictates things only our ethics and morals should determine. To understand the anger, notice how politics makes a difference of opinion into a life and death struggle. An unnecessary one.
Time to Stop Messing Around and Strike at the Root of Police Violence
It’s tempting to believe that protest marches, violent confrontations, looting, burning, and riots can change police behavior, or perhaps that they COULD change that behavior if applied frequently and vigorously enough. That kind of widespread delusion is, as Thoreau put it, “a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root,” with predictable results.
Harvard Magazine Calls for a “Presumptive Ban” on Homeschooling: Here Are 5 Things It Got Wrong
As a Harvard alum, longtime donor, education researcher, and homeschooling mother of four children in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I was shocked to read the article, “The Risks of Homeschooling,” by Erin O’Donnell in Harvard Magazine’s new May-June 2020 issue. Aside from its biting, one-sided portrayal of homeschooling families that mischaracterizes the vast majority of today’s homeschoolers, it is filled with misinformation and incorrect data. Here are five key points that challenge the article’s primary claim that the alleged “risks for children—and society—in homeschooling” necessitate a “presumptive ban on the practice”.
Being Your Own Man Doesn’t Have To Mean Rejecting a Legacy
People leave the family farm. Sons go to college instead of going to work into the plumbing business. It has a thousand faces, but there’s this American idea that inheriting a vocation is “settling,” so you’d better go off and find a new one.
Six Presidents
The Presidents of the United States are a motley crew. So far the scorecard reads 45 attempts, 45 klunkers. I am not saying there were no honorable persons in the group (“honorable” itself is a very iffy word). I have the highest regard for the intellects of Jefferson and Madison. I believe that John Adams was among the greatest lawyers (a rare occurrence). But, to me, there is no such thing as a great President. To have been one places a black mark on that career. Few have risen above.
Is Bernie Sanders a Crypto-Communist? A Bayesian Analysis
The word “crypto-communist” has a paranoid, McCarthyite connotation. But during the Cold War, numerous communist intellectuals and politicians deliberately concealed their commitment to Marxism-Leninism. Why? To be more successful intellectuals and politicians.
Real Democracy Requires a Separation of Money and State
As we enter a new year, the running battle between the world’s governments and the world-changing technology known as “cryptocurrency” continues. As 2019 drew to an end, Swiss president Ueli Maurer asserted that Facebook’s digital currency (not a real cryptocurrency), Libra, has failed “because central banks will not accept the basket of currencies underpinning it.” Politicians want to regulate — or, if possible, kill — cryptocurrency.