I’m betting that most of my readers can complete this phrase. The problem is, it isn’t quite true. Edmund Burke, its supposed source, was a good man, but that doesn’t make the saying true.
Here’s the passage, in the form most of us know: Continue reading “The Only Thing Necessary for Evil to Triumph Is…”
Once upon a time there really was an American exceptionalism and America was a light unto the world. That exceptionalism was a long way from perfect (looking for perfection in a mass of humans is silly), but it was legitimate.
Alas, that was long ago. People who say that American exceptionalism still exists may have good intentions, but they don’t understand what it was. Others, with less noble intentions, promote the idea to whip up support. Telling people to praise themselves is always a big seller. Continue reading “The Passing of American Exceptionalism: How We Became Like All the Other Nations”
(Originally published in December, 2014, a few weeks before the trial began.)
There is a basic principle that underlies any honest attempt at good governance:
Anyone given power over others must be subject to more scrutiny, and must be given less benefit of the doubt. Continue reading “Jury Nullification and Why Ross Ulbricht’s Prosecutors Are Trying to Evade It”
In my town, the corporate throngs travel almost in unison every morning and every night, making their way from the manicured suburbs to the shiny central city and then back again.
They’re not particularly bad people, you understand. In fact, many of them are pleasant and smart. But they’re being slowly digested into the body of a larger host: the 21st Century Mega-Corp Network. Continue reading “The Corporate Cocoon”
Perhaps the most vehement intellectual foolishness of our time is the demand that no culture may be judged. According to this dogma, all cultures are equally valid and very certainly none can be judged as inferior to another.
That’s not just hogwash, but dangerous hogwash. And the reason it’s dangerous is very simple:
Without evaluation there can be no quality control. Continue reading “How To Judge Cultures”
(Originally published November, 2014)
As many of you must know, the US government (and I’m not certain of all the agencies involved) has charged a young man named Ross Ulbricht with being “Dread Pirate Roberts” (DPR), the “drug kingpin” behind the Silk Road online bazaar. You probably do not know, however, that he goes on trial in two months. Continue reading “Druglord, Genius, or Saint? What Kind of Man, Really, Is Silk Road’s Dread Pirate Roberts?”
The problem with most humans is not that they think too highly of themselves: it’s that they think too little of themselves. They exhibit what G.K. Chesterton called a “weird and horrible humility.” To put it bluntly, we’ve been trained to perpetually self-accuse. Continue reading “We’re Better Than We Think We Are”
(Originally published in 2014)
I was recently involved in a day of meetings with small business owners in the American Midwest. It was both encouraging and sad at the same time. Continue reading “A Report from Middle America”
The Armenian Genocide was a systematic extermination that occurred during World War One, mostly in 1915. The killers were Ottoman Turks: agents and soldiers of that government, as well as eager civilians. Continue reading “The Forgotten Holocaust”
Humanity stands about halfway between gorillas and gods. The great question that looms over us, is this: “Which will we incorporate into our lives? Primate things or God things?” Continue reading “Are You a Gorilla or a God?”
