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Blog 3 Columns

  • Ladies: The Draft is Coming

    Ladies: The Draft is Coming0

    UPDATE: The section of the Senate legislation, detailed below, that would have required women to register for the draft was later removed. However, the question of drafting women for miliary service remains alive, as in February of 2019, federal judge Gray Miller ruled that “the all-male military draft is unconstitutional.” The New York Times reports: In the latest and

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  • Fathers: Not as Worthless as We’ve Been Told

    Fathers: Not as Worthless as We’ve Been Told0

    Over 300 years ago, philosopher John Locke presented a little nugget of advice for fathers in his work called Some Thoughts Concerning Education. He noted: “The reservedness and distance that fathers keep, often deprive their sons of that refuge, which would be of more advantage to them, than an hundred rebukes and chidings. Would your

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  • Did Truman Capote Write ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’?

    Did Truman Capote Write ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’?3

    Over cocktails a few weeks ago, I was discussing literature with friends. Conversation inevitably swung to which book had the strongest claim as “the Great American Novel.” Huck Finn immediately sprang to my mind, which I quickly changed. It’s a tie, I said. Gone with the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird. A no-brainer. Neither

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  • Are Criminals Born Bad?

    Are Criminals Born Bad?0

    The father of modern criminology, the 19th century Italian sociologist Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), believed that criminality was genetically determined. “Born criminals” could be detected by the presence of a long list of “stigmata” such as an asymmetrical faces, sloping forehead, large ears or even left-handedness (very sinister!). Criminals were atavistic biological throwbacks, reversions to an

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  • 4 Signs of Low Self-Esteem

    4 Signs of Low Self-Esteem0

    Do you have low self-esteem? If you are like many people, your immediate reaction is probably, no. After all, you don’t beat yourself up mentally and emotionally, you don’t think that you are incapable, and you don’t feel worthless. Well, these are all good things, but they don’t necessarily prove that low self-esteem isn’t a

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  • 13 Virtues in the Ben Franklin Code of Morality

    13 Virtues in the Ben Franklin Code of Morality0

    I recently wrote how Ben Franklin had a strong aversion to church services, despite the fact that he believed in God. This posed a practical problem to him. Franklin took morality seriously and he found himself wondering how he could possibly complete his “bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection” minus the structure

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  • Why Benjamin Franklin Hated Going to Church

    Why Benjamin Franklin Hated Going to Church3

    Contrary to the claims of some notable thinkers, among them the late Christopher Hitchens, Benjamin Franklin was not an atheist. He was raised as a Presbyterian and discussed his faith at length in The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, the unfinished work Franklin wrote from 1771 to 1790. Here’s what he had to say on his

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  • What would Enlightenment Thinkers have Thought of Trump?

    What would Enlightenment Thinkers have Thought of Trump?0

    American democracy is feared to be under threat. Comparisons with the 1930s are rife, and Donald Trump is now routinely called a potential Hitler or Mussolini. But some of Trump’s Republican critics have found a different source of inspiration: the great philosophers of the Enlightenment, who have a good deal to say on the subject of

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  • Was Trump Reasonable on Immigration?

    Was Trump Reasonable on Immigration?0

    Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump’s speech on Monday following the Orlando massacre has made some waves. Whether or not you agree with Trump, some of his points on immigration are worth pondering. The entire transcript of his speech is available from Politico.  When Trump describes what he wants to do if he is elected, he stated: The

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