First, having survived 44 plus years of marriage, I can only say that the first 43 years are the hardest. But the happiness and wisdom keep accumulating…go for it. Getting there is half the fun.

Second, more congratulations on being attacked by absolute wackoes. I don’t agree with all your stands (let’s not go into that now…), but one thing you do have is my respect, both as a man and a writer. You have your convictions and the courage to change your opinions when your analysis convinces you to do so. The sign of a ‘mensch’.

As far as the left is concerned, they in general fall under the diagnosis of a fanatic: when the goal is unattainable and unwise, they redouble their efforts. Theirs is an emotional commitment not to truth, goodness, or beauty but to pure emotional prejudice. Lord help all of us when we draw one in the seat next to us on a long plane ride…

Roger, keep living, keep writing, keep thinking. Remember the wisdom of Freud: “What makes a sane, healthy, happy individual? Leben und Arbeiten…Love and Work.”

Again, Best Wishes and Many Long Years Together to you both.

(Remember? Fred & Barney singing, slightly to the William Tell Overture rhythm:

Happy Anniversary,

Happy Anniversary,

Happy Anniversary,

Ha – py Anniversary.)

You beat my wife and I by some 4 months.

The reason I included nootropics is because students are illegally using powerful drugs, not just caffeine. I recognie that caffeine and ritalin work on some of the same receptor systems, but to take ritalin for a test that is graded on a curve is to cheat, and to do so in an amoral way, because you are quietly and illegally temporarily boosting yourself in ways that law abiding students cannot do, driving their scores down.

Chuck

A libertarian analysis takes into account all parties affected by an action. Hence that does not explain Den Beste’s lapses in the analysis.

When I argue abortion, I use a pure libertarian analysis, because it doesn’t require a particular religious position. Libertarianism has many insights to give – if you can show that a behavior is inappropriate from a libertarian viewpoint, that is an especially powerful argument.

Besides, I was once a libertarian… in fact even a Libertarian.

Ultimately there are two axes of political argumentation. One is in the area of unarguable axioms – such as religious values or deeply felt values. The other involves argumentation on how to apply such values, and on where such values are necessary and where they are irrelevant.

I tend to take a libertarian approach to the latter axis.

(Note, by the way, I’m I’m not questioning the use of cheating as amoral.)

Happy Anniversay! I heard an interview with Will Smith the other day in which he held forth on his theory of romance. I’ll try to quote as verbatim as possible.

You’ve got to go 100%. Be the full package. I mean, it should be roses and candlelight and soft music but you’ve also got to be ready to punch a guy out to defend her if the occasion calls for it. That’s pretty much the perfect date—where you get to do both.

May your anniversary be all rose petals and no black eyes! Try and restrain your inner tough guy detective!

I am personally a social conservative and have always made the point that social conventions enshrine centuries of social trial and error. Like most evolutionary solutions, the reason things are done a certain way is not very clear, but that does not mean that there is no reason, or that changeing things will not have an adverse effect. So I tend to the conservative side here.

That’s where I come from on many issues. I think a central conceit of my (baby boom) generation was the casual and arrogant overthrow of social traditions (”don’t trust anyone over thirty”) without the slightest understanding of them. This was especially truth with the “sexual revolution” because of objective situational changes: birth control pills and Roe v. Wade (where the court itself, as it has been wont to do for decades now, decided it was smarter than the framers of the Constitution – a process which continues at our peril – the latest being the ruling which gave rights to illegal combatant foreigners captured and held not on US soil).

My view on tradition (and ideology, for that matter) is that it should be a very strong check on impulsees, but not so much as to stop questioning. For example, the traditions of racial discrimination and gay bashing should not be respected.

My daughter is late gen-X and says her generation is strongly hedonistic and amoral – to the point that cheating in college is de rigeur, as is the taking of nootropic drugs (ritalin) for tests. But kids a few years younger are showing signs of adopting at least parts of social conservatism.

Congratulations on your anniversary. Few things in life are as rewarding and important as a strong, happy marriage, and you are amongst the fortunate few so consider yourselves blessed indeed.

As for your former “liberal” cohort’s venomous expressions they are to be expected because you are what they hate the most…a heretic.

Anyone can see that leftism is based on a philosophical idealism and as such is faith based rather than fact based (remember the 60’s mantra to “keep the faith, baby!”). It functions as a crypto-religion for its adherents and a special contempt is reserved for the apostate, as ignorance cannot be used to excuse the error of their thinking. No, they MUST be morally corrupt to turn away deliberately from the “truth” of the leftist dogma. Leftists will patronize, and even pretend to themselves to feel pity or compassion for the unenlightened, but they have nothing but seething hatred for those that abandon their creed and become “radical” right wingers.

Any leftist who faces the actual facts on the ground is eventually put in the painful position of realizing his beliefs and assumptions are erroneous for the most part, and is forced to either retreat to a haven of repression and denial, or endure the insecurity and confusion of the transitory phase of a political realignment. It is disturbing in the same way as “losing one’s religion”, because that is exactly what it is.

In a speech by Michael Chrichton on environmentalism as religion he makes a good point about religious fundamentalism that can be applied to any fundamentalist, dogmatic mindset, including what we commonly see today on the left:

“Most of us have had some experience interacting with religious fundamentalists, and we understand that one of the problems with fundamentalists is that they have no perspective on themselves. They never recognize that their way of thinking is just one of many other possible ways of thinking, which may be equally useful or good. On the contrary, they believe their way is the right way, everyone else is wrong; they are in the business of salvation, and they want to help you to see things the right way. They want to help you be saved. They are totally rigid and totally uninterested in opposing points of view. In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas.”

“no perspective on themselves”…Yup.

May you have many more happy anniversaries and continued success with both your career and your great blog.