As a man, am I allowed to have a “personal view” on abortion? I think so. I have many women in my life, including a wife and two daughters. Any unexpected or unwanted pregnancy of these women will affect me to some degree. My daughters are probably at the top of that list. When asked, and I would be asked as their father whom they love deeply, I will be a source of counsel and comfort on any decisions regarding this controversial practice.
Tag: responsibility
Victory Against Evil Is Never Final
I was talking with some church friends last night about the frustrating cycle of history found in the Biblical stories. People turn to violence and injustice and fall to violence and injustice again and again, cycle after cycle. It’s really depressing. If you look more broadly, you can find the same cycle of failure and redemption and new failure in stories and in history. We see the same evils coming back again and again. And there is no guarantee that good done now will obviously last forever.
The Little Handbook for Getting Stuff Done
While I don’t think that productivity and efficiency is the answer to life, nor should it be your only focus … there are still a ton of benefits from Getting Stuff Done. A ton.
A Hidden Source of Power
In all of these cases, and many more examples throughout our day, we’ve given away the power to be happy, to be content, to be joyful, to other people, who haven’t even asked for that power or realize you’ve handed it to them.
Compulsory Schooling Laws: What if We Didn’t Have Them?
We should always be leery of laws passed “for our own good,” as if the state knows better. The history of compulsory schooling statutes is rife with paternalism, triggered by anti-immigrant sentiments in the mid-nineteenth century and fueled by a desire to shape people into a standard mold.
Immunity and Incentives
Imagine giving someone great power whose misuse can cause harm to people’s lives, liberties, and property, but shielding the power wielders from all personal responsibility to compensate those they harm.
Evolution by Voluntaryism
I recently wrote about how choices in education (not the institution, but the natural process) arise in the individual, only to ripple among the species. I am not, however, promoting collectivism.
If You Like Someone, Don’t Make Excuses for Them
One of the most disrespectful things you can do to a person is not to blame them, but to make excuses for them.
Are We Sure It Can’t It Happen Here?
One runs a risk whenever one cites the 20th century’s great terror states while discussing current ominous developments in the western democracies. Apparent comparisons of the United States or western and central European countries to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia will inevitably be hooted down with accusations of alarmist conspiracy-mongering and worse, shameful ahistoricity. Nevertheless, that must not keep us from noticing and pointing to contemporary events that bear an eerie resemblance, however slight, to things that went on in those totalitarian terror states.
Milgram Experiments and Workplace “Common Sense”
We all know the lesson of this experiment: people give up responsibility for their decisions to authority figures. But people could note that the experiment never really ended, and that despite its lessons we’ve learned little about saying no.