Month: November 2009

Politics & Economics

Eat the Rich?

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

So, a majority of people in the country, at least according to this poll, want somebody else to pay for the looming health care program – you know, like those rich people,  who are most likely rich because they’re cheats, anyway. Why am I not surprised? Isn’t this just the perfect embodiment – and inevitable end-result – of modernism’s rejection of personal responsibility in favor of paternalistic political super-structures? I suppose I exaggerate though; the actual end-results of these left wing muggings of the rich have not...

Learning

Modern Scholar series (part IV)

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Being “between courses” has afforded me the opportunity to dip back into Recorded Books’ Modern Scholar series of lectures on audio CD. I started listening to these a couple years ago, finding the entries by Thomas Madden to be especially worthwhile listening. Aside from Madden’s, I have to admit that I’ve found the rest of the series hit or miss, but I wanted to give a shout-out to Professor Fred E. Baumann for his entry, Visions of Utopia: Philosophy and the Perfect Society. This might come across as a backhanded compliment, but I was impressed by the ...

Politics & Economics

“Tear Down this Wall!”

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Very interesting short piece linked here from the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion section yesterday by Ronald Reagan’s former chief speech writer, on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Sometimes it’s easy to forget what a dreadful threat Soviet communism posed to human freedom on many levels – not to mention world peace – and how remarkable it was that the whole odious scheme came crashing down with such a whimper. The power of words, the power of conviction, the power of resoluteness, the power of truth̷...

Misc

A Quiet Note of Thanks

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

One of those days when the realization slaps me that we just don’t get do-overs in life… I heard during the prayers of the faithful this morning that Tony Melchiorri had died, and was buried last week. Tony was a Natick cop for many years, and a man I came to know, after a certain fashion, during my teenage years in town. He was always a good guy. I think it’s fair to say that Tony spent a good deal of his life trying to protect the local kids from their own stupidity – with admittedly mixed results. But thanks for trying, Tony. R...