Category: Politics & Culture
-
Healthcare is Frankenstein
Healthcare is an almost unique combination: once a technology is invented, it must be used. The physician has no morally acceptable — or legally tenable — ground upon which to say no. So, every available technology must be offered to every patient.
-
All. Governments. Will. Torture.
No democratic state will take a course that opposes the moral consensus of her people. This may seem like a tautology to you, but a surprising number of people — and pundits — think that one function of the apparatus of policy is to keep a country on a certain moral track, which it might…
-
Cultural Diversity As Powder Keg
There are substances that cannot mingle without exploding. There are forces that cannot mingle but in a tornado. Two such forces, in the Western democracies, are so-called cultural diversity, and centralized governments. These inevitably explode in violence. “Cultural diversity” is the opiate, the mantra to certain minds. It evokes visions of rainbows.…
-
Theodore Dalrymple: The False Apology Syndrome
The habit of public apology for things for which one bears no personal responsibility changes the whole concept of a virtuous person, from one who exercises the discipline of virtue to one who expresses correct sentiment. The most virtuous person of all is he who expresses it loudest and to most people. This is a…
-
The End Begins When Balancing Becomes Swapping
When the federal treasury is large the founding premise of our system of government is gone. The incentives reverse, like a turning tide, and it cannot last. The original congress had limited powers and minimal money. So they came together to vote the interests of their states, all of whom wanted the central government…
-
The Everyman Sentiment
“He’s Everyman.” “She’s Everywoman.” We hear this comment about politicians, and it is supposed to be a compliment. We have the sense they are “like us” in some way, so they can understand us. And this is construed to be good. But it actually can mean opposite things, depending on who is speaking, and…
-
Memorial Day 2008
see also Memorial Day 2007. So God enters human flesh under a military dictatorship. During His short mortal life the freedom fighters try to enlist Him but He declines; He has other interests. This lack of interest in political freedom is one of the things that gets Him tortured to death. He does not resist…
-
Alice Walker’s distraction
You remember that book “Intellectuals”, by Paul Johnson? The one where he studied these famous ideologues to see how their private lives were so narcissistic and destructive, despite their public theories for re-arranging everyone else? (Think Karl Marx.) Well, add Alice Walker to the list. Seems like a pattern for famous artists in particular. How…
-
Technology births and kills culture
Technical progress yields leisure, which is liberation from the deperate pursuit of food and shelter. Leisure makes culture possible. Culture flourishes, which means the heart of man elaborates itself like a seed unfolding into a tree with good and evil branches. As culture develops, then, it’s parts are increasingly hostile to each other and in…