If you’re trying to guess whether people are Republicans or Democrats, knowing a few basic facts about them will take you a long way. What’s their race and gender? How far did they get in school? What part of the country do they live in and is their community urban, suburban or rural? Between 2016 […]
Read MoreTag: Ethics (Personal)
Love in Harsh Times and Other Coping Mechanisms
We’re living in a brutalizing time: Scenes of mass savagery pervade the media. Americans have become vicious toward one another amid our disagreements. Everywhere I go, people are coping with an avalanche of negative emotions: shock, pain, contempt, anger, anxiety, fear. The first thing to say is that we in America are the lucky ones. […]
Read MoreHow to be Human
The really good confidants — the people we go to when we are troubled — are more like coaches than philosopher kings. They take in your story, accept it, but prod you to clarify what it is you really want, or to name the baggage you left out of your clean tale. They’re not here […]
Read MoreHamas and the Moral Deficiencies of a Liberal Education
We have failed. When a coalition of 34 student organizations at Harvard can say that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” and students at other elite universities blame Israel alone for the attack Hamas carried out on Israelis on Oct. 7 or even praise the massacre, something is deeply wrong […]
Read MoreDonald Trump’s Campaign of Violence and Lawlessness
Though it was lost in the four-year cyclone that was the presidency of Donald Trump, one of his most immoral acts was to pardon soldiers who were accused of committing war crimes by killing unarmed civilians or prisoners. Military leaders, including his own defense secretary and the secretary of the Army objected, saying it would […]
Read MoreThe Contagious Corruption of Ken Paxton
Let me use an analogy I’ve used before: Think of a leader as setting the course of a river. It’s always easier to swim with the current. Yes, you can swim against the current for a while, but eventually you’ll exhaust yourself, and you’ll either yield to the current or leave the stream altogether. And […]
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