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.
Tag: trump
Children Are Not Interchangeable Cogs
Variations of this picture of educational cogs have been widely distributed in schools. Education works best, we are told, when all the parts work together. The picture shows three gears, arranged in a circle. If you remember your studies of mechanics, this arrangement cannot possibly work.
What Are the World’s Three Biggest Problems?
Are you a serious thinker? Then self-consciously change the subject to the Big Picture.What can be done to mitigate the media’s policy misdirection? I suggest we start the New Year with what I call the Priority Resolution. Are you a serious thinker? Then step back from the media cycle and name the world’s Three Biggest Problems. Instead of trying to score points over the latest exciting story with colorful characters, let us self-consciously change the subject to the Big Picture.
Tariffs, Pickpockets, and the Nationalist Snake in the Moral Grass
Protectionism, as it is misleadingly known, has always been an insider’s game, a political gambit aimed at enriching those to whom the government is especially beholden or seeks to seduce at the expense of other people. Incumbent producers who produce products on which tariffs are imposed succeed in repelling competition by force of the government’s customs officers, which is to say that they succeed in increasing their profits by force, not by offering consumers a better deal.
Why I Don’t Relish Leftist Rage
Since the election, several people have privately asked me, “Well, whatever you think about Trump, don’t you at least enjoy the attendant outrage of the left? At least that must make you happy, right?” Don’t I want to see them choke on their own rage? Not at all.
The Dangers of GIGO
Many pundits, politicians, and other wannabes take a few excellent ideas – such as computing and cybernetics – admix them with goals untested by reason, logic, or history, and trumpet the dawn of a New Age, where everything shall be Controlled to Perfection.
The Pendulum of American Extremes
The American Political sport is a unique beast. Something wholly original on the world stage. No, I’m not talking about “The American Experiment” in constitutional republics. That experiment has failed to produce lasting results, although it was a worthy try. No, what I mean is that unlike the rest of the western world, American politics grows more and more extreme at an increasing rate – a rate that should be alarming to most rational and peaceful people.
Politically Generated Fear Campaigns Work
Notice how many people are currently concerned/worried/scared/terrified about the existence of all them dadburn Moooslims!! “Aaaaaah, if we don’t go full fascist, they’re gonna invade and kill us all! Ban them all! Make them register! Build a wall! They’re gonna somehow force Sharia law on 100,000,000 armed Americans! Help us, Emperor Trump!”
Deregulation Of Innovation
It has been estimated that the cost to an average household is about $15,000 per year, in terms of more expensive food, housing, education, health care, and many other goods and services. We can look at it this way: the annual costs of an average household are $15,000 more than they have to be, because of federal regulations. Or, an average household could have better food, health care, education at the same cost.
How to Create an Economic Disaster
The current course Trump desires to take will lead to more border violence and more illegal immigration. What keeps Mexicans in Mexico is a vibrant and successful Mexican economy. When you obliterate their market with tariffs, they will be clamoring over the border at any expense.