Saturday Morning Perambulations
I was cleaning up some file folders on my lap top this morning, and came across a copy I had saved of a fantastic essay on Social Justice Warriors. As I gave it another read, I did some googling. After reading Wikipedia about some of the academic history it references...
Evil Corp
If I were to describe my work status nowadays, it would most succinctly be dubbed "semi-retired." I have work that I must do, but it only occupies a couple hours a day and a couple days a week. I have work that I choose to do, that advances my business interests, and...
The Lies Nannies Tell
David Harsanyi has a piece over at Reason that observes how the government often gets it wrong when putting forth health-related guidelines. Among others, the government got it wrong on cholesterol, saturated fat, salt, second-hand cigarette smoke, eating breakfast in...
Society “Is” vs Society “Should”
Ah, society. A word often used in conjunction with defenses of the imposition of the will of the majority via governmental force. A word woven into the concept of the social contract, itself a construct intended to justify the imposition of the will of some upon...
The Hierarchy of Aggrievement
One evening, when you're watching television, pay attention to the commercials you see. Pay special attention to the relationships depicted between the people in the commercials, and take note of the demographics of each character. You may notice a pattern. A...
Political Spectra
I recently saw mention of the notion that Bernie Sanders' supporters believe that cronyism (a core aspect of of our current government) can be remedied by the vigorous application of socialism. Both involve Big Government, i.e. substantial government involvement in...
All That Matters Is Winning
Thus goes the belief that a subset of Republican voters hold. They want the party to nominate and the voters to support the candidates who stand the best chance of beating their Democratic counterparts. They believe that majority control of Congress and control of the...
Trump This
Donald Trump, he of the endlessly mockable combover and ad-nauseum-repeated tag line "You're Fired!," has confounded pundits left and right (and spawned numerous conspiracy theories) by leading the pack of GOP presidential candidates in the polls. Not only leading,...
Owning Labels
My morning perambulations around the Internet included a thread discussing what "libertarian" means in the context of foreign policy and a(nother) quiz that promised to place me on the political grid. The former is quite commonplace in libertarian circles, and...
Dignity and Statism
George Takei, actor and political activist, ignited a furor recently when he excoriated Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over segments of the latter's dissent in the recent Obergefell v Hodges case that recognized gay marriage as a right. Takei, who is gay and...
Access, Redefined
One of the commonly used terms in the debate over birth control, abortion and other "reproductive health care services," as such are dubbed, is access. Hillary Clinton used the term recently in a speech at the 2015 Women in the World Summit, where she was quoted as...
Economic Liberty and Public Accommodation
The recent ruling by the Supreme Court that affirms gay marriage nationwide has been met with jubilation by many and trepidation by many others. Amid many of the latter's reasons (some of which are slippery-slope fallacies, some of which are laments about tradition...
Dignity and Debt
The Guardian, a U.K. based news organization, headlined its reporting of today's anti-austerity, pro-Syriza rally in Greece with the quote: It's a question of dignity. Greece is on the verge of defaulting on a debt payment to the International Monetary Fund that is...
A to B
A common style of attack against libertarianism involves questioning how a libertarian world would handle a particular difficult situation. While it is legitimate and beneficial, when theorizing about the mechanics and minutiae of libertarianism (something that many...
College Humor
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld made Internet waves recently with an observation regarding comedians and colleges, wherein he observed that college kids today are too politically correct, too attached to making declarations they don't fully understand, and that many comics...
Identity Politics vs The Individual
Try as I might, it seems I cannot escape the Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner saga. When the story first broke, I pondered it for a little while, realized that I didn't much care, said to myself "I hope he/she is happier now," and looked for other things to read. The story,...
“Dominate. Intimidate. Control.”
Strong words, these are. They imply elements physical and psychological. As a guiding principle, they seem most apt for prisons or a totalitarian regimes. They were the motto posted at the TSA air marshal training center headquarters post 9/11. In-flight air marshals...
False Conflations
Have a conversation about immigration reform, and you're very likely to end up talking about amnesty. Have a conversation about gay marriage, and you're increasingly likely to stray into the story about the bakery forced to bake a "gay wedding" cake." Have a...
Accident of Birth
Name a professional athlete, one at the very top of his or her game. We all know the names: Mays, DiMaggio, Montana, Payton, Gretzky, Howe, Pele, Jordan, Russell, Nicklaus, Woods, Federer, Graf, Williams, Ali, Robinson. How about a seminal name in music, one whose...
The Truth Lies In The Middle
Our lives and our interactions with the people in our lives are inevitably full of disagreements, arguments and debates. In the political realm, those disagreements tend to be categorized, delineated, reduced in complexity down to sound-bite level, and placed on...
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