Search results for: “communitarian we”

Right now I am on the road in Illinois, so I won’t have much time for posting. But earlier (as I tried to enjoy a cup of coffee at a local motel), my relative tranquility was suddenly interrupted by a man who walked into the hotel’s free continental breakfast area in the middle of highly…

An ominous development I heard about today is a perfect example of the dynamics of power addiction that M. Simon mentioned in his latest post. In case you hadn’t heard, the federal government is trying to ban the sale of certain tiny magnets — not to children (they’ve already done that), but to adults. The…

Sarah’s latest post reminded me of the stubborn, irreconcilable divergence between communitarian and individualist thinking. While it is a recurrent topic here, I’m afraid that it’s not much of a political winner, because even though Republicans are more individualistic and Democrats more communitarian, politics inherently lends itself to communitarian “we” style arguments (which means that…

I love peanuts, and peanut butter. However, between .04% and .06% of the humans in this country are allergic to the stuff. (2.3% are allergic to seafood, which I also love.) While I feel sorry for those who suffer from such an allergy, I was a bit puzzled by the angry reaction of parents to…

Via a Facebook friend, I learned about a shockingly totalitarian idea: adding the psychiatric drug Lithium to the water supply ostensibly to prevent suicide: For decades, it’s been the gold-standard treatment for the most distressing of mental health disorders: mania, schizophrenia, and major depression. But now, lithium – the third element of of the periodic…

One of the more comical aspects of the mess in California is that despite the state’s terrible financial crisis, legislators continue to busy themselves with utter nonsense — such as defrocking the official state rock. When I wrote a post about the idiotic campaign, I had not seen Ron Bailey’s Reason piece, which after noting…

The topic of extending adolescence for health care purposes generated some extensive (and even heated) discussion in Glenn Reynolds’ post — much of it occasioned by a piece by Michael Barone (“The price of perpetual adolescence”) which I found grimly ironic, as well as true. Here’s Barone: An article in the New York Times examines…

Yesterday’s post about society’s denial of mental illness drew some very thoughtful comments which reflect the apples-versus-oranges, libertarian-versus-communitarian nature of this debate. I’m not even sure it’s a debate, as people have such widely diverging views which come from different directions. Are these people — those belonging to dysfunctional, unwashed and hallucinatory classes — suffering…

Back in 1995, Bill Clinton blamed conservative radio talk show hosts for the horrific act of terrorism committed by Timothy McVeigh. I will never forget how he singled out G. Gordon Liddy by name, and his argument back then was not much different than it is now. These people created a climate that led to…

Another civil war? Must we? I don’t know, but I couldn’t resist clicking the above to read Patrick Ruffini’s analysis (in a post tiled “Hands Off Palin”) of Ross Douthat’s warning to certain conservatives. Noting the negative reactions of the latter to the negative reactions to Sarah Palin by certain Big Media conservative intellectuals, Douthat…

We’ve all heard of the Safety Nazis, and I’ve complained about an emerging group some people are calling the Gonad Nazis. And I’m fond of complaining that I hate to violate Godwin’s Law — usually just before I violate it. So this time — just for now — I have decided that I will not…

I don’t like other people telling me what to do. One of the reasons I abhor communitarianism (and tend to see my political philosophy as the opposite of that) is because it vests communitarian thinkers with the self appointed power to tell me (and others) what to do. Provided, of course, that they come up…

A comment from Tom Scott just caused me to write a long and rambling comment that wants to be a post, so rather than expect people to read comments (a process many reasonable people avoid) I guess I should just let the comment become this post. Replying to my earlier comment that I had “seen…

Clinton’s “tantrum” at Chris Wallace is making more and more sense. As a display of method acting, the man’s ability to manipulate his emotions equals anything I’ve seen from Hollywood. But I do think it was acting. The goal was a display of righteous moral indignation. And now we know why. The Republican “moral facade”…

Every once in a while, an event will remind me of the intractable differences between communitarians and individualists. The latest is the Montreal shooting, which (as I remarked earlier) has already triggered various communitarian outbursts of emotion. Almost despairingly, I agreed with a Canadian blogger who remarked, simply, that there is “no one to blame…

At this point, right now, we have over 32,000 people in Philly who have permits to carry (and) actually walk the streets of Philly with a gun. We only have 6,400 police officers. We’re outnumbered nearly 5-to-1 with people who are on the streets with guns… — Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson For every child…

In my last post, I only touched on communitarian thinking because in the context of the FMA, it gets complicated. The debate over same-sex marriage is hopelessly fraught with communitarian reasoning, which, to my mind, is based on unsupported premises on both sides. First of all, marriage in the purest sense is not an individual…

A link sent to me by a friend served as a reminder that there is a culture war raging in this country. Over a particular breed of dog called the “pit bull.” Supporters of the breed are called “apologists” or “pit nutters.” Not quite the same rhetoric is directed against anti-pit-nutters like this crackpot, but that’s…

The dietary habits of fat people are not my business and I do not want them to be. I say this notwithstanding an emerging trend among certain conservatives: Overeating and not exercising is a choice that often leads to a multitude of health issues like diabetes and heart disease. The obese are being coddled, while…

One of my pet peeves involves people who use the cover of “freedom” to take away freedom. For years, the puritanical left has been claiming to support free and open human sexuality, while waging a not-so-covert war on sex. I’m not the only one to notice, and while it’s probably normal for libertarians to notice…