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Belatedly, I’ve decided I must oppose a strike against Syria. The purpose of the U.S. military is to defend America’s sovereignty and to protect Americans’ liberty, not to be the world’s superhero or the police arm of the U.N. (or any group of foreign nations). (I’m aware that international support is mostly absent in this case. My point is that international support has no relevance to whether or not the U.S. military…

Anyone who knows me knows my conviction that contemporary Americans feel too much and think too little. Lack of “impulse control” isn't just for the “poorly socialized” anymore; it's a culture-wide phenomenon. Emotionally charged, cognitively vacuous rants and shout-downs have replaced calm, controlled, rational discussion in many (most?) venues. This trend especially prevails where topics that have always been emotionally charged are concerned. One such topic is rape. As a couple news…

Concerning the Manhattan Declaration (available on the Manhattan Project site, accessed 04 February 2013)….I have just signed this declaration). However, I thought I should note that my signing is not a blanket endorsement of all the wording found in it (though I do endorse most of the wording). Specifically, I am not entirely comfortable with all the wording in the preamble. For instance, that preamble states that Now, none of the actual…

I continue to sign online petitions. While not so deluded as to believe signing these will have any influence on policy (all my representatives have strong ideological commitments, either in agreement with or opposed to my own, so that no change in their actions or rhetoric can realistically be expected), signing them does make me “feel better” for a time, and I hope gives some encouragement to those who have gone to…

Alas, I remain incapable of achieving extremest-of-the-extreme status. Compared to blogger Justin Edwards (a man likely more pious than myself), even my cherished pro-life convictions seem moderate. Edwards proposes a ban on abortion without even a self-defense (preserve the life of the mother) exception. In response to this proposal, I posted the comments below. (I've changed the URL in this version, since the original uses a customized domain that may no longer…

Like his typical remarks on foreign policy (remember those Republican primary debates?), Ron Paul's response to Wayne LaPierre shows what happens when praiseworthy ideals are wedded to a weak grasp of reality. Though common grace (God's pervasive positive influence on even those who will never become Christians) does seem (in combination with, or possibly expressed through, "traditional values" social conditioning) to guarantee that most people in most places most of the time…

Featured image inspired by Wikimedia Commons user Shubjt’s animated GIF, “Not equal to symbol in math and computer,” which see. U-T San Diego letter writers have continued trying, within the U-T word allowance for letters (125 words per the letter editor's email to me a while back, though the paper's posted guidelines only warn vaguely against being too “lengthy”), to debate whether “marriage” should be redefined to include homosexual unions. Leonard Foster's…

This was created as an op-ed for the U-T San Diego, my local paper, and posted here as a draft on the same day I emailed it to the U-T (that is, 08 December 2012, the day of the U-T article that prompted my remarks). It would not be made visible here until I either got some sort of response from the U-T or decided that a positive response was unlikely. One…

Eric Metaxas posted an article to breakpoint.org arguing, based on the story of non-violent repeat offender Gary Ewing, in favor of revising California’s “Three Strikes” law: “Enough of Three Strikes, Unjust and Expensive” (http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/%2020657). I found a key statement in the article to be in error, and so found the argument overall unpersuasive, and posted comments to that effect under the title, “Ewing Case Study Not Persuasive Argument Against Three Strikes,” which…

The East County Magazine site carried an article about an obscure race on the ballot in my area (http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/11560). It noted how some candidates in that race had rejected the idea of seeking endorsements. Since I rely heavily on endorsements to clue me in on who believes what in these sorts of elections where none of the candidates' names are at all familiar to me, I offered some comments objecting to this…

Fox News has posted an interesting article about how some African-American Christian leaders are suggesting their followers should sit out the 2012 election because of (most notably) Obama’s newly “evolved” support for same-sex marriage: “African-American Christians waver over vote” (Associated Press, 16 September 2012). (The article also discusses reasons these leaders find Romney objectionable.) My question: If Obama’s support for gay marriage merits a recommendation to sit out rather than vote for…