First, Do No Harm!

Pascal said, "Man is neither angel nor brute, and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the brute." This is one of those truths that has revealed itself again and again through the history of mankind. Communism, The Crusades, conservatively, Liberalism have all, at times, done great harm to individuals while trying to create a better society. The belief that reaching a greater good requires slogging through all sorts of evil has lead to torture, abuse, murder and hatred.

Perhaps this is what was in Reagan's mind when he said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

It's time for all politicians people to take a personal Hippocratic Oath to do no harm when they are trying to do good. The first step is one many of you will take issue with. Vote for those who are committed to freedom and self-determination. In other words, Libertarians. I'm not talking about the ACLU nuts who are trying to hijack classic Libertarianism, but leaders who are truly committed to freedom. They're had to find today, but worth the effort.

Time Magazine's Man of The Year, What a Joke!

The first thing I do everyday is check out my list of favorite blogs. One of these is Dvorak Uncensored. While I usually find Mr. Dvorak to be a little too far to the left for my taste, I have to admit his status as an uber curmudgeon keeps drawing me back in. You see, I'm a bit of a novice curmudgeon myself.

His most recent posting about Bono's status as Time's Man-of-the-Year is a fun read. Check it out when you get a chance. Pretty funny stuff, but there is an interesting point to be made. While Stalin and Hitler have been MOTY, Steve Jobs was rejected because of some negative stuff that was dug up when the staff did the background check. This according to Steve Wozniak. Let me get this straight. If you kill 6-9 million people you can be man of the year but if you are an ass you can't. Good job Time, you guys are geniuses.

BTW, you can hear Dvorak on the Twit podcast. Go to their site or subscribe through iTunes. It's the good stuff.

Freedom of Speech

If you look at today's USA Today, you'll find several interesting articles that have a similar theme.

First, there's the story on the front page about how Congress is rambling headlong toward greater restrictions on advertisers and how they market foods and drinks to kids. Ultimately, our government is going to bar certain kinds of commercial speech from shows targeting kids. It would be hard to imagine congress banning the portrayal of unhealthy behaviors like binge drinking and promiscuous sex from Real World without every comedian in the country making jokes about these draconian methods isn't it? And rightfully so.

The second story is about the case soon to be heard by the Supremes. The bottom line is this: Some universities want to restrict military recruiters from campuses. They're taking the position that it's immoral to make them allow recruiters on campus as long as the military holds the current position it does on gays in the military.

Let's get this straight (no pun intended). FAIR (Forum for Academic and Instructional Rights) believes free speech is all about allowing you to restrict the speech of those with whom you disagree.

It's seems as if the world has gone mad. Congress wants to restrict free commercial speech, when instead parents should just be turning the TV off and writing letters to the networks if they don't like what the advertisers are saying.

Students and faculty should be protesting and writing and speaking if they don't like what the government is doing.

Both these stories illustrate have far we have shuffled away from personal responsibility. After all, personal responsibility is simply a person having the ability to respond. If your views are never challenged then you are unable to develop an intrinsic value system that is unshakable, and boy is that needed now.