Why is anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC) about the only scientific topic where the “consensus of scientists” is still supposed to be the final word, shutting down any further discussion? You don’t hear many other scientific topics described in that way. Why is that?
Tag: value
The Benefits of My Evangelical Upbringing
I often wonder how people go about their lives acting on important core ideas and assumptions without seeming to have any interest in or feel any necessity to examine, define, and make logical sense of those ideas and assumptions. Being wrong is one thing. Being uninterested in examining tacit truth claims is another.
The Speech of Heroes
Almost everyone loves the idea of “speaking truth to power.” Standing tall, talking boldly, consequences be damned – how heroic! Yet on reflection, this Speech of Heroes takes two radically different forms.
Black America Before LBJ: How the Welfare State Inadvertently Helped Ruin Black Communities
The dust has settled and the evidence is in: The 1960s Great Society and War on Poverty programs of President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) have been a colossal and giant failure. One might make the argument that social welfare programs are the moral path for a modern government. They cannot, however, make the argument that these are in any way effective at alleviating poverty.
Explain Your Extremists
No matter how controversial your political views are, there are always people on “your side” who hold a more extreme position than you do. How do you account for such people?
Meet Virgil Griffith: America’s Newest Political Prisoner
On November 29, FBI agents arrested hacker and cryptocurrency developer Virgil Griffith. His alleged crime: Talking. Yes, really. The FBI alleges that Griffith “participated in discussions regarding using cryptocurrency technologies to evade sanctions and launder money.”
Deludedly Deeming Deregulation a Disaster
Housing deregulation could deliver everything its proponents promise. Housing deregulation could bring back a world where high school grads commonly buy shiny new homes in high-wage regions. And if my respondents are correct, this seemingly rosy scenario would still outrage a great swath of the population.
Trump’s Course Correction on E-Cigarettes: Great Idea, No Matter His Reasons
E-cigarettes are not a “public health crisis.” That supposed crisis is not “growing.” And to the extent that teenagers are negatively affected by e-cigarettes, the very “bold reactions” the three writers seem to favor are far more culpable than e-cigarettes themselves. E-cigarettes are, according to all credible evidence, safer than burning sticks of tobacco — sorry, FDA, you don’t get to tell me I can’t say so.
Hiding in Plain Sight
At the risk of jinxing myself, I will admit that I have never been audited by the IRS. The interesting thing is that my late father, Kilgore Sr., got audited annually. The other day, it occurred to me, why was this so? On the strength of our names alone, it would seem that I should have been a marked man. After much cogitation, thinking about an associated matter, I came to the conclusion that I was invisible to the watchful eye, statistically speaking.
The Monsters You Tolerate Will Breed Monsters You Can’t Stand
What if the European empires had ended their colonial rules 50 or 100 years earlier? All other things being equal, it’s hard to believe that communism would have swept Africa, Asia, and South America as it did. And it’s possible the countries of the West would not have ended up at the gunpoint of countries which they once held at gunpoint.