Enjoying the view from Limbo
Rule of thumb.— Authority should never be in the hands of those who want it. The principle of decentralization.– The level of authority one human being has over another should be directly proportional to the level of personal interest and affection that defines their relationship. Hence, parents and other family elders ought to be the primary authorities in every child’s life, friends and...
If all the simpletons and halfwits magically disappeared from the Earth, society would be infinitely more rational; but then who would do the menial jobs, such as practicing modern medicine, banking, leading our largest churches, and inventing the internet? Plato’s great political insight, the founding wisdom of political philosophy itself: The only men intellectually and temperamentally suited to rule are precisely the ones...
Language and politics.– One man believes the central question of practical politics is, “Which powers should the government use?” Another man believes the central question is, “Which powers should the government have?” One word of difference is all that separates these two men — one small word that holds within it all their respective premises about human nature, the individual, and the value of...
An essential worker, defined not as our totalitarian age defines that term, but as reason and human nature define it: A person whose work is necessary in a given context. For example, in the context of a private family household, in which an income is essential to eating and maintaining a home, a person who earns money for the material continuity of that...
This week, I taught undergraduate students in face-to-face classes again for the first time since December of 2019. Every class, regardless of subject, has suffered from the virtual reality teaching imposed on all of us this year “by Covid,” i.e., by the government-media complex. Today, preparing one class for their first in-person Q & A session after their upcoming presentations, I forced each...
In the freest nation, the best men would be least attracted to a job in government, let alone a lifelong career there. Freedom expands possibilities for living, and incentivizes men of initiative and intelligence to invent new possibilities. In such a climate — one in which the “collective will” of the state is limited precisely to the extent that the individual will is...
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