The word “addiction” is sorely overused in our society. Any time someone spends in an inordinate amount of time on something, those who are annoyed by it will call it an “addiction” and proceed to, in one way or another, shame the person. This seems foolish.
Tag: world
Redeem the Evil Days
Have you ever wondered how our time will be remembered? You start to ask this question a lot if you’ve read a lot of history. The passage of time can either paint a positive or negative picture of how you and your fellow humans spent your time and your lives.
The Pittsburgh Double Bind: Presidents Shouldn’t Be So Important
If we’re going to have a president, why not keep him or her in Washington — at a desk with a stack of paperwork, away from television cameras and smartphones — instead of centering every aspect of public life around his or her actions and utterances?
Forelle’s Rule of Web Apologistics
The need for apology on the Worldwide Web for the actions of a public figure varies inversely and proportionately to the wisdom of those actions. Apology includes defense, justification, rationalization, outrage, denial, and ad hominem attack.
Inside the Moderate Mind
A progressive immigration activist recently told me that every election year, moderate Democrats urge him to shut up. Moderate Democrats clearly consider immigration a losing issue. But according to my source, they’re also quite self-righteous about their shushing. Which makes me wonder: What’s going on inside the mind of the moderate Democrat?
If You Dream Big Things Only for Yourself, Your Dreaming Is Too Small
We’ve often heard it said that the way to a better world is a better self, but the reverse is also true. The way to a better self is through the making of a better world.
Remember
In my life, I have seen the sky full of war planes, a polio epidemic, Vietnam, McCarthyism, Watergate (and subsequent scandals), Kent State, urban race riots, military adventurism (read quagmirism), 911, the seeds of past wars becoming the weeds of future wars. We have survived. We are surviving.
Moral Philosophy and Deer Hunting
Set aside the ethics of hunting itself, and you find that within the act of hunting, there’s a whole world of right and wrong. Tonight I sat in a tower stand for hours without seeing any activity from the deer population. Then, right as darkness fell, three deer came out. All of a sudden I had some decisions to make.
Optimality versus Fire
Public choice economists have long argued that conventional economists hold markets to far higher standards than they hold government. Markets “fail” unless they’re optimal. Governments “succeed” unless they’re on fire.
On Monsters
I believe we do our children and the world a major disservice when we fail to recognize one salient point about the evildoers that haunt society: before they were monsters, they were victims. Take one of the worst monsters in history, Adolf Hitler.