To understand a good man, it is more important to know the good he is for than the evil he is against. To understand an evil man, it is more important to know the good he is against than the evil he is for. For example, it is more important to know about a good […]
In November, I posted one of the short essays I wrote last February in application to a program at the University of Austin. Now I post my other short essay. I did not save the exact wording of the question, but the question was a variant of the famous question posed by Peter Thiel at […]
As always, I celebrate Ayn Rand’s birthday, February 2nd, by opening one of her novels to a random page and reading a passage. Here is one of the passages, from The Fountainhead, that I read today (Part 2, Chapter VI). “And, my dear,” asked Kiki Holcombe, “what did you think of that new one, you know, I […]
I am primarily a writer, but sometimes I will edit a book by special request. In 2019 I edited America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It, a landmark book by C. Bradley Thompson. (See my brief review.) This year I edited the forthcoming novel, Variations on a Noble Theme, […]
Of all the good opinion pieces on the answers by the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT to the question, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment, yes or no?” (and analogous questions for the other two schools), the very best essay is “Au Revoir, […]
In February, I applied to–and in March was rejected by–a program at the University of Austin. A question on the application was, Limit: 250 words. In your opinion, what is the most significant issue in the United States (or, if an international applicant, your home country) today? Why? The question is worth pondering by every […]
Don’t believe mainstream news sources. They are liars. Follow @CarolineGlick for truth and reason in Israel. Listen to her 18-minute report and analysis posted on Saturday. To understand the ideas involved, see my 2014 post, Hamas is the Realization of the Leftist Ideal. The difference now is that we are weaker, and our enemies are […]
I celebrate Atlas Shrugged Day (September 2) each year by opening to a random page of Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, and reading a passage. Here is what I found today, on pages 97–98 of the hardcover book (New York: Random House, 1957), Part I, Chapter V (“The Climax of the D’Anconias”): When Francisco left, that summer, […]
For arguing that the 2020 presidential election (as well as the 2022 election) was stolen, were these blog posts of mine criminal? Fight for Election Integrity The 2020 Election and the Burden of Proof Fight for Election Integrity, Continued State Legislatures Should End Statewide Presidential Elections America Has the Most Virtuous Right and Most Evil […]
In my previous post, my dialogue with the language model Claude–created by the company Anthropic–revealed that political bias comes not only from being explicitly left-leaning, but more subtly and perhaps more importantly from being more committed to compromise than to principles. Today I had a similar dialogue with ChatGPT–created by the company OpenAI–using GPT-4, the […]