Today marks the second anniversary of this blog. This post is the 310th post I've written. I suppose that's an average of one post every two or three days, though I certainly haven't been that consistent.
I don't know that blogging actually does the world a great deal of good, but if it's true that ideas matter, and that thinking critically about what you believe and why you believe it is important, then this blog at least does me a great deal of good. It's motivated me to essentially continue my liberal arts education, reading more about topics ranging from theology to economics to the interaction between science and faith. It's helped me to at least start down the path to developing a more coherent philosophy of life, all the while giving credit to that which has most influenced my thinking.
Some small part of me hopes that because this blog is public, it will have some positive influence on people I have never met, yet remain connected to through this vast incomprehensible network known as the World Wide Web. I have occasionally been surprised to find my blog being referenced in a wide variety of places on the Web, but I have never taken seriously the prospect of other people actually listening to me. Yet if there ever comes a time in my life when people really want to know what I think about things, I hope that this practice will have prepared me to give clear, intelligent answers.
So if you've been reading this, let me say thank you, and I hope you've gotten something out of it. I know I have.
Comment by Jameson Graber on 23 November 2010:
ReplyDeleteI mostly agree with the views you all are espousing, but I think some commenters here are simplifying the issue far too much. The criticism that the government is “doing things to other people they could never justify if they were in the private sector” is, upon a moment’s reflection, not good enough. The government has the right and even the responsibility to punish offenders of the law, whereas private citizens have no such right. Unless you intend to argue that this is not the way things ought to be (which would be arguing for anarchy) you’d better put forth a more reasonable principle which forbids the government from taking these invasive security measures. The fourth amendment should suffice.
I ran across this post on the Freeman website today and thought a couple of things odd and one humorous. First, how is it that any government has rights? As far as I can tell only people have rights. Second, from whence does government's authority to act derive? I fail to understand why anarchy is implied unless government has power that the people don't. The humor is in supposing that the constitution has force. It hasn't been worth the paper it is written on since the ink dried. Or at least since Marbury vs. Madison in 1803. It has had no force of restraint to speak of on government. And what little it has had diminishes with each passing day.
Mike