Sunday, October 5, 2003
POLICE MISBEHAVIOR
When is a police officer justified in using force to apprehend a suspect? Is there a limit to the force a police officer can use? In November, 1968, the nation witnessed a police force out of control during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. That occasion was especially disturbing, because the provocateurs were following a carefully planned agenda that was designed to show out of control police officers on national television. The plan succeeded beyond the demonstrator’s wildest...
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Friday, October 3, 2003
My Creed
The Honorable Dean Alfange was an American statesman born December 2, 1899, in Constantinople (now Istanbul). He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and attended Hamilton College, graduating in the class of ’22. Hamilton offers the "Dean Alfange Essay Prizes" established by Dean Alfange and awarded to the students who write the best and second-best essays on a feature or an issue of American constitutional government. Alfange was the American Labor candidate for governor of New York and a...
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Thursday, October 2, 2003
A Parent is...A Parent is...well...a Parent...Right?
What does it take to be a parent—not an effective parent—just a parent? In answering this question, do not overlook the obvious. You must have a child to be a parent. Set aside the question of lineage for the moment. One can be a lot of things without a child, but a parent is not one of those. Without the responsibility of a living, breathing child one is not a parent. But is this necessarily so? What about the girl who has a baby (she is a parent), but gives up the infant for adoption (she no...
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HURRAY FOR VIOLENCE
Several years ago the term “paradigm shift” came into vogue. Writers and lecturers explained to us what this strange sounding word meant, and before long this revolutionary concept became a new paradigm in educated American households. And a useful concept it is. When I was conducting the research for my doctorate, none of us was familiar with the term, but we certainly ran into the concept. In every kind of research, certain underlying assumptions are made. Frequently, these assumptions are not...
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Wednesday, October 1, 2003
GUN CONTROL, OR "BAD GUN! BAD, BAD GUN!"
Have you ever slammed your telephone receiver into the cradle because you were upset about a just concluded conversation? It’s silly, but we’ve all done it. Throughout human history people have demonstrated a tendency to react against objects instead of against causes. A classic example from our Christian heritage is the perversion of the Pauline comment to Timothy that the “...love of money is the root of all evil...,” which routinely is quoted as: “Money is the root of all evil.” By shifting...
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Sunday, September 28, 2003
ADDICTION—IT AIN'T MY FAULT!
When is a disease not a disease? During the flu season most of us go to great lengths to avoid getting sick. In Japan, where the average population density is much higher than here, people don surgical masks in public during flu season. Nevertheless, our best intentions sometimes fail us. Diseases get caught. There is a class of disease that is subject to a different set of rules. You can be near those who suffer from one of these diseases, you can share intimacy, even share needles if that’s...
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Friday, September 26, 2003
OZONE...OZONE...EVERYWHERE...OR HOW TO LIE AND WIN BIG!
I got no response to my Ozone post. I really have something exciting and interesting to tell, so all you guys who now know me a bit better, take a look at that article and let's talk about the BIG LIE!
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Thursday, September 25, 2003
SO YOU WANT TO BE GREEN...BETTER THINK TWICE!
The Greens are a loosely knit group of people that is being led by a smaller cadre of ideologues who learned social science from Marx and physical science from popular science writers. On this shaky foundation they have built an anti-freedom, anti-democratic, anti-science world view. From Marx they learned about the collective, the dialectic, and centralized control, without understanding the lessons from current history following the break-up of the Soviet Union and the world-wide collapse of...
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Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Unions–Or Why I Love My Boss!
An acquaintance of mine was explaining to me about unions. “A union is an association of workers,” he said, “that protects their interests. It makes sure the members get top dollar for their work, and that management doesn’t take advantage of them. It represents the workers in contract negotiation, giving them more clout together than each worker would have individually.” “I suppose there is a special advantage for all automotive workers to band together...” “Of course,” he answered, “there is...
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Monday, September 22, 2003
IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN
“It’s not easy being green,” crooned Kermit to an entire generation of tykes. Columnist Alston Chase quotes a German Green politician recently elected to the Bundestag —the German parliament: “Grass-roots democracy sounded wonderful before we were elected to Parliament. But now we are in power, centralized solutions seem far more effective.” “Green” is an idea whose time has come. It is impossible today to find a politician who will disavow “the environment.” From every side of the political...
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