Dear Loyal Readers,
I'll be on vacation for a couple of weeks. Check back in a couple of Sundays. I may have something interesting to say then.
Donn
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
A Graduate
Today is Graduation Day! My high school seniors will be making their way across the stage to pick up their diplomas, proof that they did in fact accomplish something these past four years. Some students, of course, need no such affirmation from society. They have worked hard and they have done so for their own good. They didn’t need any coaxing to come to school, to study hard, to graduate with honors. Like little Aristotles, they want to know. They believe without knowing that the difference between the educated man and the uneducated man is as profound as the difference between the living and the dead.
This year I had so many excellent students [particularly in my AP U.S. Govt. and Politics class] that when pressed by my administration to issue awards, I refused. I refused to identify only three students for awards, when so many deserved recognition. And again, the number of students who deserved recognition were the very individuals who least require any sort of affirmation from me. These individuals are never defined by others: they define themselves.
I like to think that I’m a lot like them, but I must say, when one of these students decided to recognize me this year with a beautiful letter and a generous gift card with which I took my wife out to dinner for Mother’s Day, I was completely blown away! I guess I learned that even a hard-core Individualist, like myself, likes to be told he made a difference in somebody else’s life. Maybe I should have given those awards, after all.
If I were to give an award to this student it would most certainly be “Most likely to succeed.” If you could see him, you would agree: the only student in the school who arrives each day with a starched and pressed dress shirt and tie, he certainly understands how to dress for success. You would agree, but you would understand very little about him. This young man is far more complex. He exasperates many of his classmates with his strong opinions, a quality I particularly enjoyed while he sat in my class. See, I enjoyed exasperating him with mine! The reason I hold so much hope for this student as he embarks on his future [in politics] is not his strong opinions, however, but rather, his willingness to listen to mine.
When asked for my advice concerning his future in politics, I told him that he should never compromise his values. To his credit, this young man knew that I didn’t mean: never change your opinions. He sat in my class for three months challenging my views, agreeing when he could, bombing me with insightful questions when he didn’t. In the end he began to form his own opinions and, more importantly, discovered that consistent, rational opinions on political issues are born only of a rational philosophy.
A politician must listen to his opponent to find the root of his opponent’s error. He must be ready to reverse his own position if the error, once discovered, happens to be his own. As much as I loathe what Chris Matthews has become since 2003, he did tell a wonderful Barry Goldwater story: Two-thirds of the House had already voted up the proposed 26th Amendment to the Constitution permitting 18-year-olds the right to vote. The Senate was debating the bill. The minority leader, Arizona Republican, Barry Goldwater led his party to withhold the necessary support. Goldwater was sitting in the Senate chamber listening to his colleagues on the other side of the isle make their arguments, when suddenly he turned to his whip and said: My God...they’re right! The majority leader changed his vote that day and persuaded the Republican caucus to do the same. The 26th Amendment passed the Senate.
The root of every error is found in philosophy and usually surfaces in an argument as raw emotion. Coercion...force...duty...guilt...and unconditional love...these are the enemies of reason. Judge, my friend, and prepare to be judged by others.
This year I had so many excellent students [particularly in my AP U.S. Govt. and Politics class] that when pressed by my administration to issue awards, I refused. I refused to identify only three students for awards, when so many deserved recognition. And again, the number of students who deserved recognition were the very individuals who least require any sort of affirmation from me. These individuals are never defined by others: they define themselves.
I like to think that I’m a lot like them, but I must say, when one of these students decided to recognize me this year with a beautiful letter and a generous gift card with which I took my wife out to dinner for Mother’s Day, I was completely blown away! I guess I learned that even a hard-core Individualist, like myself, likes to be told he made a difference in somebody else’s life. Maybe I should have given those awards, after all.
If I were to give an award to this student it would most certainly be “Most likely to succeed.” If you could see him, you would agree: the only student in the school who arrives each day with a starched and pressed dress shirt and tie, he certainly understands how to dress for success. You would agree, but you would understand very little about him. This young man is far more complex. He exasperates many of his classmates with his strong opinions, a quality I particularly enjoyed while he sat in my class. See, I enjoyed exasperating him with mine! The reason I hold so much hope for this student as he embarks on his future [in politics] is not his strong opinions, however, but rather, his willingness to listen to mine.
When asked for my advice concerning his future in politics, I told him that he should never compromise his values. To his credit, this young man knew that I didn’t mean: never change your opinions. He sat in my class for three months challenging my views, agreeing when he could, bombing me with insightful questions when he didn’t. In the end he began to form his own opinions and, more importantly, discovered that consistent, rational opinions on political issues are born only of a rational philosophy.
A politician must listen to his opponent to find the root of his opponent’s error. He must be ready to reverse his own position if the error, once discovered, happens to be his own. As much as I loathe what Chris Matthews has become since 2003, he did tell a wonderful Barry Goldwater story: Two-thirds of the House had already voted up the proposed 26th Amendment to the Constitution permitting 18-year-olds the right to vote. The Senate was debating the bill. The minority leader, Arizona Republican, Barry Goldwater led his party to withhold the necessary support. Goldwater was sitting in the Senate chamber listening to his colleagues on the other side of the isle make their arguments, when suddenly he turned to his whip and said: My God...they’re right! The majority leader changed his vote that day and persuaded the Republican caucus to do the same. The 26th Amendment passed the Senate.
The root of every error is found in philosophy and usually surfaces in an argument as raw emotion. Coercion...force...duty...guilt...and unconditional love...these are the enemies of reason. Judge, my friend, and prepare to be judged by others.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
I'm Sure
You don't have to know everything
in order to say you know something;
I know that one thing
I'm sure
You've got a right to your life:
You've got to be free
to do your own happiness.
Do your own thinking.
I know that one thing,
I'm sure
in order to say you know something;
I know that one thing
I'm sure
You've got a right to your life:
You've got to be free
to do your own happiness.
Do your own thinking.
I know that one thing,
I'm sure
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 25]
Donn,
Disgusting?? No, your thoughts are naive and unrealistic. You think if your 3 multi-mega-international corporation colluded another multi-mega-international corporation that someone would come in and undercut them?? HAHAHAHAHA, dude, that’s about as unrealistic as can be imagined. You’re living in a fantasy world. The truth is, they'd come in, offer to buy you out for some pittance, if you refused, they'd simply lower their prices until then sell at a loss until you, with your smaller capital, went out business and then raise prices right back to where they were. They’re bigger, THEY could sustain the losses you could not. How do I know?? Why, THAT was Bill Gate modus operandi for years.
Marcs
Marcs,
Are these multi-mega-international corporations more or less powerful with or without the help of politicians? You call me naive? You trust the goddamned politicians more than a middle class kid with a great idea who hands the world desk top computers, or the poor farm boy who built the Model-T.
You know nothing about Gates...only what you've read in the yellow press. Believe what you want. Be as negative as you want. Eat your heart out over other people's hard-earned success. Sic your politicians on him. Cry, it's unfair! He has so much and I have so little. Florida's going to cut my teacher salary! Break up his company! He must have cheated. He must have hurt somebody to get where he is...tax him! Give me my share of what he has created... pathetic.
You damn mankind for his every achievement. Say you care about the little guy, and then destroy the creators of his middle class livelihood, the entrepreneur, the risk-taker, the capitalist. You won't know what you've done until it's too late and Americans are living like much of the rest of the world in filth and tyranny. Say you care about liberty, but deny men the product of their labor. Enslave mankind a few percentage points at a time and call your work Progressive. Enslave the best of us. Why? So that you can provide health care, free housing, and food stamps to that high school drop out with two kids, a third on the way, and no idea who the fathers are. Call her "less fortunate" as if luck had anything to do with her predicament.
Hand the world over, Marcs. Hand it to least worthy among us. That's the altruist-collectivist way.
Donn
Donn,
Now you’re just getting nasty and ugly. I have to end this conversation now, Bye.
Marcs
And that my dear reader was the last time I heard from Marcs.
Disgusting?? No, your thoughts are naive and unrealistic. You think if your 3 multi-mega-international corporation colluded another multi-mega-international corporation that someone would come in and undercut them?? HAHAHAHAHA, dude, that’s about as unrealistic as can be imagined. You’re living in a fantasy world. The truth is, they'd come in, offer to buy you out for some pittance, if you refused, they'd simply lower their prices until then sell at a loss until you, with your smaller capital, went out business and then raise prices right back to where they were. They’re bigger, THEY could sustain the losses you could not. How do I know?? Why, THAT was Bill Gate modus operandi for years.
Marcs
Marcs,
Are these multi-mega-international corporations more or less powerful with or without the help of politicians? You call me naive? You trust the goddamned politicians more than a middle class kid with a great idea who hands the world desk top computers, or the poor farm boy who built the Model-T.
You know nothing about Gates...only what you've read in the yellow press. Believe what you want. Be as negative as you want. Eat your heart out over other people's hard-earned success. Sic your politicians on him. Cry, it's unfair! He has so much and I have so little. Florida's going to cut my teacher salary! Break up his company! He must have cheated. He must have hurt somebody to get where he is...tax him! Give me my share of what he has created... pathetic.
You damn mankind for his every achievement. Say you care about the little guy, and then destroy the creators of his middle class livelihood, the entrepreneur, the risk-taker, the capitalist. You won't know what you've done until it's too late and Americans are living like much of the rest of the world in filth and tyranny. Say you care about liberty, but deny men the product of their labor. Enslave mankind a few percentage points at a time and call your work Progressive. Enslave the best of us. Why? So that you can provide health care, free housing, and food stamps to that high school drop out with two kids, a third on the way, and no idea who the fathers are. Call her "less fortunate" as if luck had anything to do with her predicament.
Hand the world over, Marcs. Hand it to least worthy among us. That's the altruist-collectivist way.
Donn
Donn,
Now you’re just getting nasty and ugly. I have to end this conversation now, Bye.
Marcs
And that my dear reader was the last time I heard from Marcs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)