This is my 100th article for FEE.org, so here are 100 reasons to homeschool your kids!
Tag: natural
Don’t Force Your Crutch on Others
Crutches were a good invention. Thousands of years after someone came up with the idea, they are still useful. Using a crutch may not be ideal, but it’s better than the alternative. It allows someone to get around when they might not otherwise be able to without crawling. If you need a crutch, use one. However, not everyone needs a crutch.
Trump’s Trade Policy—A Reductio ad Absurdum
Let’s consider the president’s trade policy in, as it were, its very best light. Suppose, then, that the government succeeded in eliminating the trade deficit entirely. Residents of the USA would continue to sell huge quantities of goods to foreigners but buy nothing at all from foreign sellers. The trade deficit would be not only diminished but wiped out and replaced by a huge trade surplus. Trumpian triumph!
A One-Sentence Recipe for Civilizational Revival
Today’s anti-civilization is a mix of economic authoritarianism (“do whatever you are told”) and social infantilism (“be whatever you want”). Civilization requires the very opposite: a mix of economic libertarianism (“do what you want”) and social maturity (“be what you ought”).
School Will be Remembered Like Leeches and Cigarettes
How did humans learn stuff the other several thousand years of civilization? How were 80% of colonial Americans literate with no standardized institutional schooling, and when books were rare and costly and most jobs didn’t even require reading? How did people invent stuff, start businesses, write books, create great art, and expand the corpus of human knowledge for thousands of years without certified teachers and grades and degrees?
Trump’s “Trade War” is a War on You
Punitive tariffs on Chinese and other foreign goods are simply corporate welfare. They are a mechanism for redistribution of wealth from American consumers and workers to the most politically connected American business owners. Those businesses can charge more for their product and still remain “competitive” because their product doesn’t have that extra tax levied on it.
Triple Standards: The Dollar, the Throne, and the Altar
Since the general story is utterly wrong, however, there’s no hope for Tyler’s specific version. If he were right, people would also anthropomorphize governments and churches, leading to unfairly harsh judgment. In fact, however, governments and churches enjoy overwhelming deference even when they’re engaged in vile crimes. We damn the dollar, yet honor both throne and altar.
Gun Laws Far Overstep Their Bounds
Back in the 1920s, those who advocated alcohol prohibition at least passed a Constitutional amendment to make their laws Constitutional. They were still wrong, but they made the attempt to play by the rules. Those who target your liberty today don’t even go through the motions. They do what they want, secure in the knowledge that the courts will not bite the hand that feeds them.
Words Poorly Used #141 — Leviathan
“In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.”
The ADHD Overdiagnosis Epidemic Is a Schooling Problem, Not a Child One
While ADHD may be a real and debilitating ailment for some, the startling upsurge in school-age children being labeled with and medicated for this disorder suggests that something else could be to blame. More research points to schooling, particularly early schooling, as a primary culprit in the ADHD diagnosis epidemic.