Jewish Atheist

Is there ONE organization where boss-abuse, the adult form of bullying, can be reported and curbed, by a reporting structure that goes right to the CEO, such that even senior management assholes get called on their behavior and told to reform? No, I don’t think there is. In many cases, senior management confers the right to be an asshole.

If religion were unfailingly to deliver a better class of people, a more moral and humane individual, and if in fact it made for the gradual and palpable improvement in the human race and the human condition, then I might see some justification for all the fantasy and ritual. But when people cling to that fantasy and ritual and use it as a cover for immoral, inhumane behavior, then there is no excusing religion; there is only wishing for its disappearance and demise.

Governments decide what drugs – and what drug users and traffickers — are to be the scapegoated (in On Liberty and Drugs, which I heartily recommend, Thomas Szasz points out the historical relationship between the two meanings of pharmak-, ‘scapegoat’ and ‘remedy.’ After all, scapegoating was the way to rid the tribe of all its evils.

All of his advice some from a highly privileged and lucky individual who probably doesn’t know why he’s so successful, so it’s all suspect.

Yes, Felix, everyone gripes about taxes, but not everyone regards them as an obscene, outright betrayal of our birthright of liberty. Is it not ironic, Felix, that you escaped from one oppressive bureaucracy in the USSR, only to be the administrator of another USSR-style bureaucracy right here in the US today?

Sorry, Brett, but today, there is no way a 13-year-old can be considered an adult. Neither the mind nor the body is fully formed enough to make adult decisions, and the moronic behavior of teenagers and twentysomethings illustrates this fact eloquently. Childhood actually seems to be getting longer: the 30s are the new 20s. So the whole adulthood thing is a sham, a transparent excuse for a flagrant display of conspicuous consumption and adult conformity.

I am truly disturbed that an American citizen welcomes “brainwashing.” I hope there are few like Marilyn Taub, but I am afraid there are many.

There would be no shortage of ways to downsize government, if the political will were there. Here’s one: A new law says that all government agencies, except for the few that actually serve Constitutional functions) would have five years to do a feasibility study to see if they could function standalone. If not – generous packages and turn out the lights. I happen to think private regulation would be superior to the politicized FDA, but we’ll never know till we try.

Dumbth has progressed since 1989. There’s creeping dumbth as well: an ever-fresh supply of new conspiracy theories, Obama’s a Muslim, aliens, etc. And there’s a thick foundation level of Basic Dumbth (ignorance cultivated in the soil of religion, militarism, politics, and advertising).

There is something unctuous and repulsive about marketers defining me, just as with rabbis. Both would offer me fulfillment in exchange for suspension of skepticism, willing acceptance, and long pilgrimages to be the first to purchase gadgets or light torches.