The history of the US is not that of good government gone bad, but of bad government remaining bad. Yes, it’s improved a bit in some areas even as it has worsened in others, but when it comes to its central evils—plundering, kidnapping, caging, and killing people—it continues to follow the pattern of cruel oppression which has always defined it.
Tag: world
WikiLeaks: Hostile is as Hostile Does
When the US Senate Intelligence Committee declares WikiLeaks “hostile,” the obvious question is “hostile to whom?” WikiLeaks is allied with the American people, while the US intelligence community — and, for the moment at least, the US Senate Intelligence Committee — is our enemy.
The Most Pervasive Form of Censorship in the U.S.
Bureaucracies and armed agents preclude you from hiring, renting to, selling to, or inviting into your home or business the majority of the earth’s population without near impossible approval processes. I can think of no greater violation of human rights and dignity.
“Faith” Is Your Attitude Toward Reality
The faith that actually matters is how you are predisposed to judge reality and to act. If you cultivate that, it will prepare you to act almost automatically for the good – particularly in crises, when it’s especially important that s
Can Self-Directed Education Exist In Public Schools?
“Do you think Self-Directed Education (SDE) can be integrated into the current public schooling model?” Responses ranged from “no way” to “anything is possible,” with commenters pointing out the key factors that would need to exist to make it work: increasing parental empowerment and mobilization; loosening compulsory schooling regulations; trusting children more and weakening the authoritarian structure of modern schooling; investing in smaller schools and classrooms.
Let Your Curiosity Be a Source of Meaning
The philosopher Albert Camus once wrote that the only meaningful philosophical question was “why shouldn’t I commit suicide?” Jarring, I know. But there’s more to the question than you might think. This is not just philosophy for emo kids.
Regulation is the Moon
From time to time, the smaller, closer body may shield the very much larger (by orders of magnitude), further body from our view. But for a few moments, we see the world as upside down, out of reconciliation.
How to Be Deep and Wide
Going deep into a single thinker doesn’t mean you can’t be a broad generalist. Think about it, if you read five books on one subject you will know more about it than 95% of the population and be able to converse with specialists. Yet it’s only five books. You can repeat this tons of times for whatever topic/thinker strikes your fancy. It’s so much more fruitful than a single book in passing.
How To Live In a Nuclear-Armed World
It’s our own small inhumanities that create our great inhumanities. It’s our small humanities that can save the world. If it’s too late, it’s too late. But I much prefer to play my music as the ship sinks than to let myself be ruled by fear.
The Missing Link between Truth and Goodness
In addition to being economically inefficient and ethically unjustifiable, statism is also aesthetically revolting: it suggests that complex social challenges can be addressed by the crudest principle of “might makes right”, or, to put things metaphorically, that broken quantum computers can be fixed by repeatedly pummeling them with a caveman’s club.