Some Reflections on 2021

Some Reflections on 2021

Democracies are inherently unstable. Given enough time, they will vilify even their best and brightest, undermining their history, thus calling into question their present.

Human qualities: Faith. Hope. Charity. The greatest is charity, the commonest is hope. But, in motivation, the strongest is fear.

There is little in common between abstract science and practical technology.

Science, like democracy, is very poorly understood by the public.

The election of Trump and Biden should carve in stone the basic American idea that government is dangerous and needs constitutional structure and limits. Both men needed supervision in office.

Current culture is obsessed with acceptance and so will drive the peripheral to the center. Gender dysphoria in women is 1/5th as common as dwarfism; these unfortunate outliers have become quotidian.

In McGurt, the Supreme Court decided that some U.S. laws did not apply to some races.

Anyone who knows anyone with a genetic defect or severe illness knows the truth: equality is a philosophical concept--spiritual or political--not a quality of life.

Capitalism is not a philosophy, it is the awkward outgrowth of the behavior of a free people. Thus the attack on capitalism requires a subversion of the liberty that made it possible.

Coal use was up 9% last year, globally. Some people are taking the CO2 problem of the world less seriously than others.

Has anyone told the developing nations the sacrifices they will have to make with the forced substitution of expensive, unavailable energy sources for cheap, available ones?

A hierarchy will always serve itself first.

Greed is wanting what you have earned, wanting what someone else has earned is not greed.

800,000 non-citizens will be allowed to vote in NYC. Didn't we have an election where everyone was worried about the influence of noncitizens?

Crime is beginning to be presented in the news and politics as a 'health problem.'

African leaders are beginning a campaign for cheap energy using the phrase 'energy poverty.'

Vaccines protect individuals, not the group. This disparity is discordant to some, and threatening.