epistemology ⁽³⁷⁾

Murray N. Rothbard. What Has Government Done to Our Money?, 6th edition. Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2024, softcover, 138 pages. (1st edition was in 1963.) In my last post, I noted how “I’m ill at ease with the emphasis on anarchism and preference for Hoppe and Rothbard in the [Mises] caucus” because “anarchism strikes me as unrealistic and Utopian, the same sort of ideology-driven fantasizing that created and sustains Marxism.”…

Retweeting and commenting on the last in a series of articles by the Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (CSC)’s Dr. Jonathan McLatchie, a molecular and cell biologist, got me briefly embroiled in some discussions with the disciples of a YouTube “science educator.” Though the “educator” himself contributed the first tweets, the way he conducts himself on Twitter can’t rightly be called “discussion.” The initial interactions with him…

Prospective Remarks This post comprises three sets of remarks: Some concluding comments will follow these three sets of remarks, though I can’t promise those comments will strengthen the linkages between the sets. I can’t even promise that they will attempt to do so. Favoring liberty but opposing anarchy, defending radical skepticism as a coherent and rational choice for unbelievers, and promoting the cause of abortion abolition to atheist empiricists who idolize Ayn…

Introductory Remarks: Culture Peace As Possible God, through the Apostle Paul, urges his people to, “as much as lieth” in them (that is, insofar as doing so lies within their control), “live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18). For a while now, I’ve found it difficult to square this divine directive with efforts to use the government to win the so-called “culture war.” I’ve also been troubled by how some include abortion…

Welcome to the latest edition of the series formerly known as “prompted letters,” which chronicles my off-site correspondence with all and sundry. As will be noted in the Pious Eye “About” page when I get around to updating it, all posts on this site are snapshots of my thinking at whatever point in time I wrote down the posted material. Since I’m always modifying and improving my thinking — or trying to…

Preface ˅ Our nation’s degeneration into tyranny seemed to accelerate in 2020 as a new virus and the respiratory illness caused by it, one with a fatality rate that should not have caused any more fright or alarm than the ubiquitous threat of death hanging over every one of us every day, was used by America’s tyrant-at-heart government “leaders” to force upon a once freedom loving people an increasingly absurd assortment of…

Introduction and Contents A printed letter objecting to a columnist’s conflation of race and religion; An unprinted letter concerning the latest ultra-rich guy’s call for higher taxes; An unprinted U-T “Your Say” submission suggesting a lesson to be drawn from a tried soldier’s conduct; An unprinted letter drawing the same lesson from the same conduct, but with less detail; Am unprinted letter indicating that the politics of racial identity makes racists of…

Below: some preliminary remarks on a terminological issue related to a book in progress. The book: George Will’s The Conservative Sensibility (New York: Hachette Books, 2019). The issue: “This is a republic, not a democracy—let’s keep it that way!” to quote a John Birch Society sticker you’ve probably never seen. The content: main remarks and tangents. In The Conservative Sensibility, Will brings together various strands of discussion that have grown in prevalence…

Image: Mysterious galaxy abstract, released to the public domain by its creator, Lynn Greyling, through the Public Domain Pictures site. I’ve recently started reading an interesting book by Gerardus D. Bouw, PhD: Geocentricity: Christianity in the Woodshed (Cleveland: Association for Biblical Astronomy, 2013). As I’ve read the beginning of the sixth chapter, on “The Biblical Firmament,” I’ve run across what strikes me as some very odd reasoning (55, 58-60). Since odd reasoning,…

As it happens, my Reddit post was “removed [by a Reddit moderator] as it violate[d] Reddit‘s content policy with respect to personal and identifying information.” Since I am philosophically opposed to anonymous Internet posting (If you’re not willing to identify yourself, nothing you post deserves to be read, respected, or considered—certain whistle-blowers and the like might be an exception to this rule), thus ends the short, happy life of my Reddit exploration.

Pious Eye (David M. Hodges) posted a comment to Reddit’s DebateReligion subreddit arguing that faith is not based on experience, evidence, or arguments, but that, rather, trust in the faculties that allow experience, evidence, and arguments depends on faith. To read it, follow this link.

I should note upfront that I am not an official representative of the Constitution Party. Nor have I run my ideas by any official representatives of that party. My reasons for preferring this party over the Libertarian Party are entirely my own. Partisans of either party who find my perspective inaccurate or unfair may certainly feel free to correct me—provided they can do so in a civil, constructive fashion, of course. That…