Tweets and Elephant Cries

One thing we risk losing in attacking the US founders is separation of church and state. Does that mean we should ignore their flaws? No, not at all. But are we to discard all the thinking of the Englightenment because of their flaws?

There is a well-trodden path from suppressing sexuality to authoritarianism. When you see attacks on porn (I don't mean pornographic abuse) be wary. Digital comstockery is a thing.

If you have nothing real, you cling to symbols.

Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism all rejected slavery and colonialism in their beginnings. They have not always kept to their ideals, but if divine inspiration means anything at all, it appears that the divine hates slavery.

It took literal centuries of philosophical effort to get to the point where, despite his hypocrisies, Thomas Jefferson could write, "All men are created equal" and have it widely accepted. We forget this at our peril.

So. Five of the six "conservative" judges on the Supreme Court are now known to have been bought; the sixth seems to be a resentful second-rater.

To keep vulnerable people safe, you need to use a respirator before they're in your office. Putting it on after the fact works no better than stubbing out a cigarette does to cleanse the air.

Our intellectual property system is unreasonably biased toward monopolists and is disastrous in health care (and software, but that's another story.)

There are no reasonable Republicans left. Surely that is obvious by now?

Apparently Elon musk just doesn't like safety features and that is why there is no launching pad safety at SpaceX.

The first response to this story should have been, "It sounds like anti-trans propaganda - is it a plant?" And of course it was. It's only because of anti-trans editors like Chait that it got so far.

The reason that so much manufacturing has been sent to China is because the Chinese government is willing to put their people to work in slave and near-slave conditions. Some of the very wealthy really like that. Not only do the get cheap labor; they get to crack the whip, or at least hire people who will. Are we going to refight the Civil War on a global scale? “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” – Lincoln

You sure you're not channeling ChatGPT?

Torture victims remember; torturers often do not.