Category: Free Content

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Jerks 01.A–National Stereoptyes

Every human society has had its share of offensive or annoying people: busybodies and bores, poseurs and bullies, cheapskates and check-grabbers, hypocrites and egomaniacs.  You might even be able to define some societies by the offensive characters they tend to produce or by the qualities they find most offensive.

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My Jerkless Knee

Since the knee surgery of two weeks ago, I have been living in a fog of discomfort and confusion through which, occasionally, a dim light shines with enough brightness to permit me to revise a few pages or post something I have rewritten.  I on’t feel terribly guilty about my sloth, but I have decided to share my tedium with others,

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Resisting Evil, V: The Fundamental Things of Life

Instead of plunging headlong into the tedious history of self-defense legislation, let us rather begin (as Plato or John Locke might) by imagining a state of society in which there is no legitimate authority or, at least, no legal power to protect the innocent or punish the guilty.  We do not have to dig into the ethnographic accounts of such violent peoples as the Ifugao of the Philippines or the Yanamano of South America.  The Celtic, Slavic, and Germanic peoples of Europe provide a rich record of violent periods in which self-help and vengeance were a normal means of protection...

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Resisting Evil IV

When a Christian engages in lawful homicide, either as executioner or soldier, it is the ruler and not he who is morally responsible for the killing.  The soldier or judge is merely the instrument of a ruler whose power comes from God, as Christ informs Pilate during the interrogation.