Corporate Human Shields

When a country or a corporation claims that any actions against it shouldn't occur because it would cost jobs, the term "human shield" comes to mind in a way not much different than when used in the context of physical violence or war.

Constitutional Inadequancy Shines Through

Yet another 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court. What these things mean to me is that the Constitution--a document written in the 18th century--is inadequate for the task of holding a country together in the 21st century, even with all the patches and supposedly clarifying rulings since its adoption.

No one should expect that any group of people living at any moment should be smart enough to rule over those who live hundreds of years later. If a set of rules are so unclear that the supposed experts are split more-or-less 50-50 on a regular basis, then the rules are more-or-less irrelevant.

One other way I see this has the Supreme Court's role in church-state separation morphing from chaperone to pimp.

Men and Sex Made Clear

I'm not 100 percent sure why, but this segment from a Family Feud episode illustrated more than anything else I've seen the innate difference in how most men and most women view the desire for sex.

Sentence Fragment Firearms

I thought I would share something that I think makes clear the seriously skewed position of the National Rifle Association.

A Google search of their website only comes up with one hit when searching for the entire text of the Second Amendment, which includes the need to supply a "well regulated militia" as the reason for people to be able to "keep and bear arms."

When going to that one NRA page, the text is part of the description of a short video about the NRA National Firearms Museum, a video that includes an image of a display which obstructs the "well regulated militia" part of the Second Amendment with a gun.

Elusive Sexuality

I wonder whether at least some of the people who are against society's normalization of homosexuality hold that stance because we have yet to understand the implications of heterosexuality despite thousands of years of trying.

Tea Party Insurgents

I fear that before too long we will see news outlets accurately using the term "Tea Party insurgents."

Ignoring Advancements

The opening paragraph of this story about a religious right legal group seeking to "recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries" is based on a point of view I always find difficult to understand.

The information available to us increases in quality over time as we make new discoveries about everything. It is a human failing to insist that the declarations of people from some point in the past--necessarily based on information that has long since been superseded--should remain in force.

Postal Service

The way we should look at the U.S. Post Office is as a government service that is provided to everyone--just like public safety services, storm drains, and street lights--not as a for-profit enterprise out to make money. Seeing any part of government as a commercial business badly skews its role as a service provider for the common good.

Hoodwinked Racism

It's really hard to take serious the claim that people who aren't racists can be tricked in to sincerely saying things only racists would say otherwise.

Dead People Maintaining Control

Concerning guns in America: Having our lives controlled by an 18th century sentence fragment and what people who have been dead for 200 years did or didn't say is not a sign of our intelligence.

Humans Gone Viral

It would be difficult to accurately define the results of a virus attacking its host without that definition including the results humans have had on the planet.

Attack of the Fetus

Abortion opponents who are trying to push "stand your ground" and "personhood" rights for fetuses don't realize it, but this "logic" contains within it a justification for abortion at any time because a pregnancy is an attack on the pregnant woman by the fetus and she is allowed to protect herself again anyone attacking her. If a fetus is declared a person that can be seen to exercise a "stand your ground" defense, then so can the pregnant woman by standing her ground against the attack of the fetus. And, it would be constitutional under the equal protection clause.

Related from Womenshealth.gov.

Choice Ignorance

I sometimes think people see ignorance as just another lifestyle choice that everyone would be wise to consider.

Each Day That Comes is the Best

Anytime someone asserts a past point of view as more valid than one infused with new information, it's a benefit to remember that during every day that passes we can truthfully say, "We have better information now."

Throwing Bullets

It is often said by the pro-gun crowd that reasons to restrict guns are silly because the same logic could then be used to ban silverware because some people eat too much. Well, if that's a valid conclusion, eating with one's hands instead of a fork or spoon would result in the same amount of food being consumed, and therefore the same number of deaths would occur by people using their hands to throw bullets instead of firing them from a gun.

Metaphorical Misdirection

Some people assert that being on public assistance is equivalent to "being a slave" to the government, hoping that people will accept as valid their use of "slave" as a legitimate alternative definition instead of the metaphor it actually is, then running with it to try to prove that assistance to the poor is unethical.

Spoon-Fed Fragments

It is an unfortunate practice that pundits and preachers spoon feed audiences sentence fragments from documents like the Constitution and the Bible causing the requirement of context to be ignored as irrelevant.

Mismatched Meanings

"We can never be sure if our communication was successful; there is no certainty about what actually it was we shared." -Thomas Metzinger

Because all methods of communication include connotation and context specific to all individuals' own unique experiential history--and there is no way to strip away that collateral meaning--completely successful communication will inevitably be unattainable.

Not Getting It

After hearing or seeing a conversation that includes a child-like response that ignores what was just revealed, I often think "...but this one goes to eleven."

Not Knowing What One Doesn't Know

"Foolish people understand quickly, or believe they do, because they are not capable of imagining the difficulties and hence have no hurdles to leap over." -George Sarton

The above quote from the 1950s lines up with a named cognitive bias from late 1990s known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, the idea that unskilled people have no (or limited) capacity to realize the level of their own inadequacies.

Taken together, it seems fitting that a major goal of any society should be to instill the idea that we should never assume we're done learning.