A life in words

  • Why My Blog’s Seemed Boring Lately

    Hello dear, devoted(?) fans! I owe you an explanation. Those of you who have just been visiting my site directly may have thought that nothing interesting has happened since sometime in August. Well, I’ve actually posted a lot since then, but there was a problem with my site configuration so that you couldn’t see those…

  • Choice, Compulsion, Popular Opinion, and the Public Interest

    Choice Relative to our own capability to act, believe, intend, or feel in various ways, choice is the process by which we actually do act, believe, intend, and feel. While some in the cognitive sciences feel that our choices may be entirely a product of chemical processes and circumstance, most people believe at some level…

  • Choose

    There comes a point for all of us where we simply have to make a decision: either we choose the flat, gray neutrality of belieflessness, or we choose to see the world in the dynamic contours of faith. When you believe in nothing—or, rather, when your belief is that there is no right or wrong,…

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves… to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection [and] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption….George Washington, Farewell Address