SelfAdoration.com

Given a rational choice, which he cannot have and will not have for many years, no baby would choose to writhe in his own waste. But this does not make changing his diaper any less an act of physical force – expressed with a forearm gently pressed to the baby’s chest if necessary.Photo by: Sellers Patton

I clicked through your link and read your post “We will not rid the world of cannibals by eating them…” and I found your thoughts very interesting. I found absolutely nothing to object to among these assertions:

You do not have the right to hurt people.

You do not have the right to effect retribution.

You do not have the right to exact revenge.

You do not have the right to demand recompense for injuries that might have occurred but didn’t.

You do not have the right to make an example of Joe so that Jerry will be deterred.

You do not have the right to teach anyone a lesson.

Other people’s lives are not yours to dispose of. Not ever.

Two wrongs do not make a right. Not ever.

I am curious about a few things in light of this extraordinarily clear explication of principles. Do you punish your son? Does your son go to school because he chooses to or because you require him to? Do you require your son to attend church with you?

I have no idea if these are “gotcha” questions or not. I have enough and too much experience with that kind of pretend philosophy, where, if you can make believe you have tricked me into saying (more…)

Even at its scrupulous best, a delegated self-defense is an illusion, as any father who has killed a burglar can tell you – and as the father who was not there to defend his family can never bear to tell you.

And yet the nature of nature is that tragedy results not just from malice but from simple negligence. I hope I am wrong about the border crisis. I hope I am wrong that this is an intended genocide-by-epidemic, and I hope I am wrong about the epidemic regardless of the intentions of our lazy tyrants.

But if I am wrong in the instant matter, I am not wrong in the large: The essence of leadership, of the captaincy of a polis, is that the captain promises never to put your life or prospects into avoidable peril. Whatever spin anyone might put on these events, whether incompetence or malice, there is nothing of leadership in them.

To the contrary, it is increasingly obvious that the ruling class is too busy grasping in its own behalf to care at all about the fate of the people it presumes to rule. If our despots are not actively trying to kill their own burdensome clientele with an epidemic, they’re not doing anything to stop it, either.

Not this and not anything. The ruling class cannot defend the borders of the territory it insists it must rule, but it cannot keep criminal predators away from your home and family, it cannot even keep bedbugs from infesting your furniture.

The promise of the policed polis is that, since we all share a common interest (more…)

Let’s have a ‘national conversation’ about the fact of American life that matters most, hurts worst and offers the best promise of redemption going forward: Fatherlessness.By: Yvette T.

You bet.

So it’s stupid, I suppose, to presume to lecture big-name national politicians about how to engage people in ways that just might change minds – and hence votes. Stupid because no one is listening, anyway, but stupid, too, because the only response to those kinds of observations is a roaring silence, punctuated, eventually, by some act of petty vengeance. The last thing mediocrities want to get is better, so they hear nothing but the criticism, none of the coaching.

That’s okay. I’m talking to you, not them.

We are chastised all the time about our palpable need to have a ‘national conversation’ about this or that – racism, poverty, hunger, inequality, blah, blah, blah. The words ‘national conversation’ mean Lucy will hold the football in place until the last second, and Charlie Brown will land flat on his back again. ‘National conversation’ means: “You lose, and if you don’t like that, you’re a racist!”

I have a solution for that problem: Let’s have a ‘national conversation’ about the fact of American life that matters most, hurts worst and offers the best promise of redemption going forward: Fatherlessness.

Marriage and family are the man’s relationship. He creates these institutions for his own purposes, engendering all of human civilization as a secondary consequence. Accordingly, only men can fix marriage and family, but, when they do, they will redeem all of Western Civilization:

Fathers are hoplite Greeks, like Leonidas and his Spartan warriors, beating back savagery by pushing back and civilizing the frontiers. Fathers have been denounced and ridiculed for so long, from so many different directions that they have have forgotten to be the heroes their wives and children need:

• Families with dedicated fathers thrive, the rest sunder.

• Children raised by their fathers are far more likely to prosper as adults and make good parents themselves.

• Parents who (more…)

This is a chapter extracted from Father’s Day. If you don’t want for your children to be delivered to the tender mercies of Family Court, you should be working through this book chapter by chapter.

10. The Long Goodbye

Tell me what your mouth looks like in photos. Mister Married has a warm, gentle smile that he wears almost all the time. Mister Divorced has a big fake grin that he flashes in any photo he lets anyone see. What does Mister Maybe’s face look like? What does your face look like? How about your wife’s? What do your children’s faces look like in photographs?Photo by: Ding Yuin Shan

I don’t love everything about social media, but I love looking at other people’s family photos. So here are the Maybes, as best we can imagine them, all dressed up in their holiday best. Little Junior is a stoic, isn’t he? That tight-pursed line of his mouth, razor sharp and perfectly level to the ground, is his way of telling the world how much he hates his situation and his powerlessness to change it. His little sister Sally looks scared and needy, and she’s already puffing out from the cookies and candy she wolfs down when no one is watching. Mom is even puffier and even needier, but she is less scared than angry. And there’s Dad, showing each one of those emotions – fear, anger, need – with Junior’s tight-pursed mouth surmounted by a thousand-yard glare, resentment masked as indifference.

Am I getting the details wrong, dude? Dang. Tell me what your mouth looks like in photos. Mister Married has a warm, gentle smile that he wears almost all the time. Mister Divorced has a big fake grin that he flashes in any photo he lets anyone see. What does Mister Maybe’s face look like? What does your face look like? How about your wife’s? What do your children’s faces look like in photographs?

And am I being too hard on you, Dad? Too soft on Mom? She doesn’t think so. But unless she’s (more…)