One of the things that haven't been mentioned (as far as I know) is mobility (not referencing disability here). While it is true there are jobs going unfilled, and there is affordable housing available, the two are often at an impractical distance apart. The problem of "immobility" is generally invisible to those who have cars or very good transit systems available.

If you can't get between jobs and affordable housing, then they might as well not exist. For example, North Minneapolis has affordable housing, thanks to white flight several decades ago. A number of suburbs have job opportunities not available in North Minneapolis. It isn't laziness that prevents fairly poor people from getting between the two: It is lack of a car and zero workable transit. Commuter bus lines bring thousands of white white collar employees into the center city in the morning, and return them to the suburbs in the late afternoon. There is no center-city-to-suburb-and-back transit during the day or past the early evening rush hour. Sometimes there is "tenuous transit" -- 1 bus line connecting to another line once each hour, and another connecting once an hour. This kind of schedule is just not workable on a day in day out - years long basis.

It isn't that suburb-to-suburb, town-to-town and round-trip transit can't be arranged, but it is expensive, and takes a long time to amortize. In addition, many white suburbs are not anxious to be conveniently connected to poor parts of the central city.

A much-studied, long-planned light rail line between Minneapolis and a western outer suburb will cost about $2 billion, and just about every foot of the distance has been contested by some local interest that views it as a nuisance.

You have done well. Congratulations! But... 2 things:

You are only 1 (just 1) injury away from months of unemployment. If it is available, and it might be available--look and see--invest some of your earnings in a private disability insurance policy. Even if Canada has a state disability programs, the more protection your income has the better.

These private policies won't replace the amount of your earnings, but they could keep your fairly full boat afloat should you break a leg. Having some extra income during the time you can't work could save your house.

I can't remember... are you saving money? If not, start. Now is the time. Money in the bank can solve a lot of small problems that would otherwise snowball into big problems. Are your worthy and deserving relatives contributing to the cost of the household (like, through benefits of some kind or work)? If not, they should be doing something.

I hope you can keep up the pace for quite a long time -- just because that will mean you're still healthy and going strong, but be extra careful. We all want you to have a long good life.

when there's a problem, how about looking within for the solution instead of asking for help — Hanover

What's that song, "We all need some body to lean on"?

If finding affordable housing was such a no-brainer, your approach might make some sense. Your comment would be appropriate for me: I have assets and resources. Young, unestablished people haven't or can't accumulate the assets and income that it takes to just go out and find a nice place to live. It isn't just the monthly rent. Many landlords want the first and last month, (and maybe a damage deposit) in advance. That requires a chunk of change, and 30 days later another rent check is due. If you don't have substantial cash on hand, up-front expenses are a real problem.

affordable housing — Sapientia

Good luck. Have you considered lowering housing costs by pooling resources with compatible people? It's definitely not everybody's nice cuppa tea, but it might be a step up. Something sort of communal, but not slovenly...?

I feel your pain. McDoodle's suggestion of moving to a cheaper county might be a good idea too -- but where life is cheaper is often where the means of support are diminished.

Good work and good housing (that is, living in a place where you feel glad to go at the end of the day and where you like your mates) and those two things not being too far apart make for a happier life. Is 1 room of one's own enough for now?

I wish you luck. There are a lot of cities in the world, Metro London, Metro New York, San Francisco etc. where people are driven into the outer suburbs to find places they can afford, then they spend hours and cash commuting -- 2+ hours a day commuting is a significant subtraction from life.

You are right: There is no satisfactory solution within our "economic and social structure" as it has existed, and is likely to continue to exist. Mostly what we can do is tinker a bit with the mechanics of the system in such a way as to not annoy wealthier people too much. Wealthier people have a fairly long list of annoyances.

At least minimally adequate housing, health care, education, food, water, and clothing (the necessities) ought to be treated as rights, and not perquisites or privileges. But, alas, we don't live in such a world.

Terminology:

• mobile home: a complete house built on a heavy frame that can be towed to any location. These can be single wide (typical flat-roof trailer) or double wide (two halves bolted together, side by side, hipped roof). Generally intended to be moved only once.
• prefabricated home: the parts of a complete house loaded onto a flatbed and trucked to its destination. These can be 1 or 2 story houses with attics and basements.
• Prefabricated apartment buildings: Large buildings assembled from prefabricated parts. (Adequate engineering is essential. Some units built in GB after WWII collapsed for being inadequately engineered.)
• tiny home: a very small trailer, less that 100 sq. feet (maybe much less). Fresh water and waste is a problem.
• emergency shelter: a lightly built, somewhat flimsy "camper shelter" used as part of disaster relief, not intended for long-term use.
• Recreational vehicles: self-powered mobile homes. Very fuel inefficient, but adequate space for 1 or 2 people--not intended for fixed location.

Mobile homes, for instance, are considered the province of white trash--for no good reason. Manufactured housing is affordable and is at least adequate. However, if your city zones them into the least attractive part of town, and the mobile park operator basically puts everyone's trailers in one big gravel parking lot, the benefit of mobile housing will be devalued. Mobile and or prefabricated housing is a ready solution on the supply end. If mobile home parks receive the benefit of tree-planting and landscaping, they don't have to look like instant slums.

come and live in Todmorden, OP, it's lovely here! — mcdoodle

Be careful, there. I can just see your little corner of paradise being over-run and ruined by a plague of tourists, developers, builders, summer people--marauders all--coming to trash the place.

When demand rises faster than supply expands, prices rise. One of the factors on the supply side is the amount of space considered necessary for each individual housed. The minimum has risen considerably over the last century. Many 'Efficient' apartments were built in the 1920s/30s consisting of a small bathroom, a sleeping room, a closet, and a very small kitchen provided around 250-350 square feet of space for 1 person. Smaller and larger versions were built. These days many people would consider 300 square feet of living space per person very inadequate.

Post WWII houses (built by the million) consisted of a bedroom, a kitchen, a bath, and an additional room set on a concrete slab (no basement). These were designed for at least 2 people, and were expandable into the attic space. Today, ordinary new houses and apartments might provide 1000 square feet (or more) per person. A suburban house for two might have 3 or 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, a large family room, a very large kitchen, an office room or library room, game room, large 2-3 car garage, laundry area, and so on. Land in suburbs is often parceled up into rather large lots. McMansions are are even worse, being absurdly big.

More living space and land = higher costs. One solution is to use zoning and tax law to discourage excessive size in housing, and to build better multi-family buildings. Many people dislike multi-family housing (apartment buildings) because they are usually quite unattractive, often too large for single family home neighborhoods, and worse, cheaply constructed. Better, older apartment buildings had thicker walls and floors which insulated one unit from other units. In cheaply constructed buildings noise and odors migrate freely within the building.

People also dislike multi-family housing because it is fairly common for many renters to be victimized by unruly, loutish, rude people in just one apartment. Barbarian-control is a necessity, not an amenity. (And unruly, loutish, rude slobs generally do not realize that they are a problem. Were young (or old) slobs housed in concrete bunkers far away from other people, they would not be a problem.

I would have come up with something better than the spleen, except at the time my mind was being buffeted by unhelpful breezes and subversive currents.

Yes, I'm on some pretty heavy drugs (not street drugs) that have helped me in the past; but, as you say am seriously considering getting off them to get in touch with my emotions again. — Question

I don't know whether it is a good idea or not to get off your drugs, but IF you should decide to go off your meds, don't do it abruptly -- take plenty of time and taper off. The result of just dropping your meds all at once can be extremely harsh.

I've been on antidepressants and or anti-anxiety meds for a long time--30 years, just about. Old tricyclics, Trazadone, Xanax, Paxil, Zoloft, Serzone, and now Effexor. Serzone and Effexor worked the best and of those two, Effexor has been most effective. I've felt very good for quite a few years. I didn't feel suicidal at the bottom of my trough 15 - 20 years ago, I felt more like murder -- lots of rage, intense irritability, anger, and all that.

I definitely was -- still am I suppose to some extent -- suffering from major depression--the organic condition. But I was mostly depressed as a result of life decisions that had not worked out well for me. I was not a "victim" of my thinking, but if one wants to be a free spirit, and if one is entertaining all sorts of radical ideas, then taking jobs in workplaces that are very conventional and regimented is a formula for lots of unhappiness.

Once I decided to quit working about 10 years ago, I experienced a rapid improvement in my mental health and a sharp decline in my need for sleeping medications, tranquilizers, and fairly high doses of antidepressants. The last two jobs had come very close to driving me completely crazy.

I had the mental machinery for depression before I was 26. What I didn't have (despite studying psychology) was the self-recognition that my mental health, aspirations, and decision making were totally out of sync. It took decades to get that through my thick skull. (Of course, back in the 1960s psychiatry was not as effective as it is now, had I availed myself of its services, which fortunately I did not).

If I were your psychiatrist, I would definitely not take your word for it that you were not depressed.

It could be that the idea of suicide, and the meaninglessness of life, is an idea that some obsessive hook in your mind has snagged, and can't let go of. It might be the case that suicide suddenly seems like a cure-all for the misery of life. (It isn't. It just moves the misery on to somebody else.)

They want you to "find some new behavioral patterns and immerse myself in some activities" because, probably, you are doing entirely too much naval gazing--ruminating on all the alleged negative aspects of yourself and your supposed drab wretched life. They want you to do something positive that bolsters positive mindedness, and get out of the rut you are in.

There are normal physical things that you like to do: get up and do them whether you want to do them or not. Force yourself. Doing things that you do enjoy now, or used to enjoy doing, is far better medicine than sitting in a dim gray room (so to speak) adding up all the stuff that is wrong.

Put a rubber band around your wrist: a nice new stretchy, thick one -- but not tight. When you find your thoughts alighting on the topic of suicide, or all the defects in yourself and your life, pull on the rubber band and give yourself a somewhat painful snap. (This is to help break the habit of negative thinking about yourself and your life. If you don't like the pain from the snap, then stop thinking negatively.

Don't suppose that your mother would get over your death and move on. She might not. A child's suicide is very painful for a parent. And don't deprive the world of what you have to offer, either. We need all the help we can get.

You are one of many people, depressed and not depressed, who are at times hard pressed to come up with a good reason for not blowing their brains out. Life is a bitch, and sometimes we feel like it sucks way too much to put up with. But virtually all of us who feel that way, for 10 minutes or 10 years, manage to go on, and we later are glad we did. Not that life turned out to be a bowl of cherries after all, but because we just decided to keep on keeping on and for some reason, life got better.

Are you taking your medicine, on time every day?
Have you reduced the dose, with or without your doctor's approval?
How long have you been taking whatever it is that you are taking now?

Sometimes the effectiveness of specific antidepressants (like SSRIs) declines and people benefit from taking a different antidepressant. Talk to your doctor about it and thank you for giving me this opportunity to play Doctor Krank, Internet Psychiatrist.

wasn't aware of SW England — Hanover

I would suspect many people were not aware of the SW corner of LB (Less Britain). And, really, why bother getting familiar at this point? Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland will be leaving before long, as well they should, and maybe the terra uncognito of SW England too. Merry Olde Great Britain kind of flushed itself down the loo with Brexit.

A polite lynch mob is quite counter-intuitive.

Maybe it's an artifact of German-translated-into-English?

According to the article I read on General American English, it includes most of Canada. When I listen to As It Happens (news show) they sound like most announcers in North America and so do most of the people they interview.

In over ten years of asking if anyone knows the simple distinction between a lynch mob and a democracy I have yet to hear the correct answer from even academics. — wuliheron

Democracies tend to be bigger than lynch mobs, I suppose.

By "identified nothing' do you mean identified nothing as if it were something? Is this like seeing something which is not there? So when you no longer know that you are hallucinating, then you have personal problems? Is this "nothing" time? We identify it, and name it as "time", when it is really nothing? — Metaphysician Undercover

Heavy cream, man.

Atlantans don't speak General American English. You have to be from the west or the midlands to claim that you speak properly. Hollywood and Dallas, basically. Normally one wouldn't find Hollywood and Dallas in the same sentence, but here it is appropriate.

How do you say "Toronto" for instance? (Canadians don't know how to speak English, either. They say "Torono" -- obviously WRONG. For your average Canadian, "can" and "can't" are pronounced the same way. I don't know how they even became a country. Very strange.) God only knows how they talk down in places like Atlanta and Dothan, Alabama.

To me it seems obvious that"comfortable " in this context should not be taken to mean 'happy', but in a very relative sense like 'as happy as possible' or perhaps more appropriately ' as little unhappy as possible'. Hopefully Jimi will clarify. — John

Some people think that "crazy people" -- lost in their own delusions, fantasies, detached realities -- are in "lala land", in some sort of "fun place". Most of the people who experience psychosis and delusions (like, they hear voices, see things that aren't there... you know, hallucinations) are decidedly not happy or comfortable in this state. They are not happy because people (almost as a rule) don't become delusional and psychotic about happy, pleasant things. Voices don't tell them that they are wonderful, they tell them to throw themselves under trucks, jump off bridged, ripe their clothes off--that sort of thing. They feel dreadfully fearful.

People who are merely severely depressed may not have hallucinations or they may not feel dreadfully fearful. They just feel quite bad without any specific external reason. People who are mentally ill often have fairly wretched lives, good medication and excellent psychiatric care notwithstanding.

There are, on the other hand, lots of "deluded people" who think this is the best of all possible worlds. They have not hallucinated this view, they arrived at it by a logical process -- see Candide by Voltaire. "The best of all possible worlds" view doesn't hold water, but this is the world we have -- for better or worse. One can get "comfortable" with this world, or one can change at this gates like Don Quixote, be like your favorite revolutionary, (fill in blank here), or commit hari kari as a statement of your dissatisfaction.

Clear headed and decidedly "not crazy people" can get comfortable with this world while recognizing that it is at once and in actuality the best and worst of places. They see the sparkling clear brooks and brown sewer water, the meadowlarks and the vultures both.

There is a great scene in The Sopranos where the one-legged Russian woman who at one time is a prostitute (at one stage in the series) says to Tony Soprano (the Mafia boss), "You know, people in America expect everything to be perfect and everyone to be happy. People in the rest of the world expect shit and a lot of trouble. They usually get it."

My own suspicion is that space and time can exchange identities in extreme contexts and its possible to produce nonlinear temporal effects or "ripples" in time itself and the thrust they are developing is actually time being converted into space behind the device or space in front of the device being warped and compacted, but that's all speculation at this point. — wuliheron

I don't understand what you are talking about. It may be imminently sensible or it may be pure nonsense (as opposed to adulterated nonsense). I can't tell -- I don't know enough to know or not know about voids and contexts and identities bouncing around the mulberry bush. There may be a weasel about to pop.

but it could be a bit more complicated and they could also be messing with space-time itself and doing some kind of weirdness. — wuliheron

No doubt.

It seems to me that Hawking was, at one point at least, concerned about aliens 'out there' tracking our inadvertent 'here we are' signals back here and

a. wiping us out or
b. colonizing us or
c. ushering in a new renaissance or
d. wondering, WTF?

So, we should rush out into the stars, (were we able) and trip up some alien plan and piss them off? Doesn't seem like a good idea.

There is no point building a lifeboat in orbit, on the moon, or on mars. Earth is our all in all, and manufacturing a satisfactory substitute isn't possible. It isn't that something can't be constructed. What is impossible is for this organism to survive and flourish in a small hot-house environment over the long run (say, 20 generations), and even if we could, what's the point? A life boat is a dead end to start with.

The point was that Jesus' Sermon on The Mount had a different purpose - it wasn't advice on how to live a Christian life. It wasn't meant to say "you should be poor in spirit, you should mourn, you should be meek" - but rather that those categories of people were more likely to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Furthermore, it talks nothing - and I mean nothing - about anxiety. It doesn't say "blessed are the anxious" does it? — Agustino

Sure it does.


Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? 26 Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto [f]the measure of his life? 28 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."


You are contradicting yourself. If people want to spend eternity in Paradise, and there are certain characteristics of those who are admitted to Paradise, then it would make sense to develop those characteristics. Unless, of course, you are taking Calvin's approach that those who are saved are saved, and those who are damned are damned and can not help themselves.

what am I doing here in a paranoid and semi delusional state — Jimi

A good question, but were you really paranoid and semi-delusional, you probably would not have been able to composed your interesting post.

I believe that many people labeled as "sick" have just found a comfortable reality they can belong to — Jimi

Is reality a rubber band? Is it so flexible that one can get away with any old delusion that happens to be on hand? Lots of people, including me, have played around with the idea that we are all delusional, everyone in his own way. It doesn't work. Reality intervenes to either jerk us out of our delusional states, or finish us off.

That said, many quite non-delusional people agree that life as we know it is an unsatisfactory arrangement. Clearly the world was not organized for our convenience, and long-lasting happiness just may not be in the cards. With no beasts to be hunted, no frontiers to be explored, we are stuck dealing with ourselves and each other, which is challenge enough.

Welcome!

I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as a sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go to space. — Stephen Hawking

With all due respect, Mr. Hawking, it's too late. The means to wage a terminally devastating nuclear war are at hand. The missiles and bombs are ready to go. Genetically engineered viruses (or bacteria, let's not slight bacteria) may or may not already be in the freezer. Smallpox was eradicated, but the US, for one, Russia I believe also, has kept a few samples of the virus. It wouldn't wipe out the species, but most people under 50 have not been vaccinated. A reintroduction of smallpox would be pretty bad.

Mars? We don't have the means yet to send several people to Mars in good health, let alone several thousand or a million; and even if we did, Mars is not open for business. Mars might never be open for business, and even if it was, it is much smaller than earth--about half the size.

Proxima Centauri is the closest star, about 4.3 light years away. We could send a probe out there at a speed considerably greater than Voyager's, but even if it was 1/10th the speed of light...

You are exactly right, Wayfarer. We are already on our spaceship. We may or may not be doomed (in the near future, anyway) but here we stand, and here we are going to stay standing.

Yours was a zinger, his was just sour grapes.

The morally incompetent are not going to suffer much from their sinful behavior. Only the morally competent are able to suffer from sin.
— Bitter Crank

I would argue that the apparent malice associated with the deed would increase the sinner's ostracism, but even a clueless sinner is going to find himself cast out, although perhaps he won't understand why. — Hanover

I didn't present this clearly. The consequence of sin (likely) is a separation, an alienation, from the community. Either one is shunned, or expelled, or made a pariah, or is put in prison -- something. Separation from one's community is painful for social animals like ourselves. The morally competent will feel guilt in addition to the pain of alienation.

The morally incompetent will be shunned, expelled, be made a pariah or be imprisoned. They might not feel a lot of guilt. The morally incompetent readily blame others for their self-caused problems. "'You' 'They' 'It' made me behave badly. It isn't my fault." That might be true, but it usually isn't. People generally act badly because they have decided to act badly. (Acting badly here means actions like murder in the first, theft/robbery/burglary, adultery, etc.)

happiness is more like hotness, not something "measured", — Agustino

heat, hot, happiness, horse shit.

You usually can't tell whether whether the water is hot without measuring it. You don't need to use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the water, but you have to use something -- your finger, your toe, your tongue -- something. Putting your toe in the water to determine how hot, or cold, the water is IS measurement.

A virtuous person might not be at all happy. He might be grieving, he might be very depressed, he might be very frustrated, all sorts of things. He might feel very guilty and inadequate, despite his virtue. (People in the upper midwest often feel guilty without good cause.) Virtue is worth pursuing but supposing that it will definitely make you happy is a mistake.

It's also a mistake to assume that not-virtuous behavior will inevitably lead to misery. It will lead to misery for those who value virtue above all else. The less store one puts in virtue, the less bad behavior will produce misery.

Happiness (and its opposite) are not a function of virtue (and its opposite). Some people are happy as a given. They didn't earn it or deserve it, they just are happy. Similarly some people are miserable as a given. They also didn't earn or deserve to feel wretched, but they do.

Virtue is its own reward, they say. It doesn't win us an additional prize.

Because nothing compares to pornography - in pornography you can fulfil any fantasy, and it's so easy. Not to mention that nothing compares in terms of pure physical (not spiritual - very important) pleasure to pornography. — Agustino

People's experience with pornography varies from person to person. Some guys don't find pornography terribly interesting, some like it a lot, some MUST have it, with various points in between. Same thing with prostitution. Some find it repellent, some find it a public convenience akin to plentiful taxis.

A distinction I want to make with adultery, pornography, lack of interest in sex with one's partner, and so on is that from one perspective these are, as you describe, betrayals. From another perspective these are morally indifferent, but diagnostically significant. How so?

In a relationship that is defined as mutually committed, formally recognized, and deeply valued relationship defined as exclusive and perpetual, Adultery (capital A) is a betrayal, a very serious moral failing. No one has argued here that Adultery is a good thing, or of no moral significance. We are all pretty much agreed about that.

Sometimes adultery (not capitalized) is a sign of a failing or failed relationship. Use of pornography, masturbating alone, or disinterest in sex with one's spouse can be the same thing. Relationships often die a slow or rapid death from causes which have nothing to do with adultery, pornography, or masturbation. In these cases (and they are many) adultery is a result, not a cause. Same for pornography, unexplained absences, heavy drinking, indifference, and so forth.

The failure rate of marriage is quite high. There are a variety of good causes to attribute this to: lack of adequate preparation for marriage, bad economics, ridiculously unrealistic expectations, marrying too soon (youth), previously established habits of drug and alcohol use, romantic notions that never did make sense, a lack of maturity, a lack of experience living in cooperative households, and so on. In other words, a lot of marriages fail because of incompetence.

Welcome.

At the core of marriage is a relationship between two people. In a healthy relationship, the two people communicate openly, like each other like best of friends, are supportive, solicitous of the other's well being, and have enjoyable sex. No relationship is perfect. All relationships have flaws (as do all people), and under the stresses of life individual vitality can be leached away and relationships can go flat. Tired people and flat relationships aren't a disaster, of course, they are more like the norm--at times--for long term relationships.

One of the reasons people get involved in extramarital relationships is an effort to get some energy back into their life. Whether it's moral or not, it sometimes works for the individual. People also masturbate alone and turn to pornography to try to extract some pleasure out of life, once work, childrearing, marriage, et al has become a treadmill. The thing about pornography and masturbation is that there are no performance demands--physically or emotionally. It's reliable. It's cheaper and easier than adultery. And much, much safer.

What's the solution?

Individuals and couples have to find some sort of a workable strategy for the long run. It varies from couple to couple.

talk of the 'Arab spring' — Wayfarer

The big mistake in our response to revolutionary change in the mIddle East was referencing Prague Spring to describe the winds of change that were blowing through Tunisia and Egypt. Prague Spring was great, but it came to a crashing end 8 months after it started when Warsaw Pact troops marched into Prague to break up the party.

The Arab Spring ended in the same sad spring-ending way.

Envy and jealousy are basically the same. — John

If so, how come women have penis envy and not penis jealousy?

Envy seems clear enough: a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck: she felt a twinge of envy for the people on board. Jealousy is more complicated. The root of jealous is Middle English: from Old French gelos, from medieval Latin zelosus (see zealous). Zealous and jealous apparently have the same root in Latin.

Jealous implies envy, a dictionary suggests, but also
• a feeling or showing suspicion of someone's unfaithfulness in a relationship: a jealous boyfriend.
• being fiercely protective or vigilant of one's rights or possessions: Howard is still a little jealous of his authority | they kept a jealous eye over their interests.
• (of God) demanding faithfulness and exclusive worship.

Jealousy perhaps should be used when the emotion is much hotter and riled up than mere envy. Merely envious people generally don't attack the owners of Mercedes or Lamborghinis the way jealous husbands murder the adulterous interloper.

Assad's father (came to power in the early 70s) wasn't exactly the prince of peace. In an effort to suppress the Moslem Brotherhood (perhaps or perhaps not a worthwhile goal, I don't know) he killed about 40,000 Syrians in Hama. As I recollect reading at the time, it was a pretty savage suppression. That doesn't account for the current civil war, but points towards 45 years of conflict, and family precedents for extremely brutal policy.

Intervention in other countries' sordid affairs would be a great idea if their various sordid situations weren't so damned messy.

Thanks, Barry, for the feedback. I don't mind being called a grammar nazi or a pedant -- I've been called far worse things. If somebody asks me to read something and give feedback, I reach for a red pencil. Feedback is good insurance and it helps ensure that we don't stray too far.

And it's an especially bad idea to be wrong when pride precedes a fall! — Barry Etheridge

Indubitably.

The OED is a wonderful resource, but a word's history is not necessarily guidance for current formal usage. Donald Trump used the word "bigged" (meaning 'enlarged'). I had not heard such usage before, but sure enough, the word has a history. Even so, I would red pencil it in a dissertation. Same for "home" used as a verb. (Maybe there is a British/American difference in usage, here...)

good observations.

This isn't a matter of adultery, strictly speaking. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, married to multi-millionaire art heiress Anne Sinclair, and at the time, head of the International Monetary Fund, was accused of raping Nafissatou Diallo, a housekeeper, at the Sofitel Hotel in New York City. Legal forces were brought to bear on the accuser, a million dollar bail was paid, and charges were negotiated fairly quickly.

Not very long ago, Strauss Kahn would probably not have been arrested, and his denial would have been believed. His preference for what the Daily Mail called "'rough' libertarian sex" might have been frowned upon slightly, tittered over, or laughed about, but opprobrium would not have fallen on him. His various sexual affairs would probably have been dismissed as peccadillos--not mortal sins.

Times have changed, though. He did have defenders, but there was also a lot of very sharp criticism of Strauss-Kahn's serial adultery in France, the UK, the US, and elsewhere. When I was in college (mid 1960s) the guys thought a woman being raped "should just lay back and enjoy it". Only the most troglodytic Tromper supporters use such phrases these days.

I'm way way out of the young-folks' circuit, so I don't really know much about what they are thinking, except that I have heard some young people (late teens, twenties) expressing either more responsible or more conservative views about sexual behavior (straight and gay alike). I would say it's something of a ground-swell, certainly not an earth-shattering move towards some older, more traditional values.

A note about your text: Be sure to have someone carefully proofread your text before submission. "Home", for instance, is not a verb. It's a noun. We do not "home people". One must use the verb "house" (the verbal form is pronounced 'howze" ).

It's your work, say what you want. But why try to make a silk purse out of a libertarian sow's ear?

In order for your state to effectively insure that citizens are actually free, you either will or have arrived at a quite sizable state. Libertarians by definition are against such a sizable state, are they not? For instance, the state can not wisely choose to remove or not remove children from abusive homes without an apparatus containing trained individuals who are capable of properly assessing the home environment (aka child protection social workers), and a place to take the children immediately after removing them. The government must then have a family court where the due process and justice (protecting everyone's freedom) can be adjudicated. Somehow the social workers need to be trained and certified, and so on.

Our federal government was once very small, and provided really nothing more than defense, a judiciary, internal improvements, a legislature, and some fairly small departments which provided fairly narrowly defined services to citizens, like the US Post Office. Wars, and the necessity of taking care of the soldiers who died or survived, and extreme economic adversity forced the government to become larger and to provide more services.

It seems like a government which citizens expect to protect their freedom will, of necessity, grow larger. More taxes will be required.

Unless a dictatorship or god-ordained royal family has been imposed on a people, there is a social contract between the citizens and the government. The Government is given a portfolio of tasks, the citizens pay for the services through taxation. The taxes we pay is not a fee-for-service payment. At various times, some people get more service than others. The child taken from an abusive home receives a lot more services, probably, than a couple who are excellent parents. This is necessary if the freedom inherent in a person is to be protected. The abused child needs much, the good couple need little to utilize their freedom.

"Taxation", libertarians claim, "is theft", in the same way that anarchists at the other end of the political spectrum follow Proudhon in claiming "all property is theft". It seems like the social contract of the people makes taxation a form of protection rather than theft. We pay taxes so that we are protected from roving gangs, hordes of homeless people, children crippled by abusive parents, people who can't read, write, do arithmetic, identify their hometown on a map, or balance a checkbook. Taxation is capital we invest in our government.

Now, I'll readily agree that our very, very large government is wasting money hand over fist every day, but I'm not willing to agree that this is theft. If we think the government is spending money incompetently, there are avenues through which we can pursue a correction in performance. If we think the government is incompetent and do nothing but bitch and carp about it, we prove ourselves incompetent citizens.

since you responded words were added.

Really... give me a break. — Agustino

I'd rather discuss adultery with you than with anybody else, sweetheart.

Sin is its own punishment, like virtue is its own reward. People who sin significantly (I mean, real solid sinners) destroy their relationships with others, they cast themselves out of the community if they haven't already been cast out. They destroy other people. The cut themselves off from God -- a unilateral action on their part.

In the same way that many people are very robustly virtuous, a lot of people are not robustly sinful. A lot of their sinfulness is just wandering around in the dark not really knowing what the hell they are doing. "Moral incompetence" isn't the same thing as good, solid sin. Lots of people would have a hard time even telling the Inquisitor what sin is, never mind what their sins were. Morally, they don't know shit from shinola.

The real sinners are morally competent: they have detailed knowledge about what sin is, they know what virtue is, and they have decided to sin. There are all sorts of things a true sinner might do--everything from stealing an article that catches their fancy (knowing that there is no logical way of justifying the theft), seducing and consorting with their best friend's wife (and knowing precisely how this is harmful), killing (murder in the first degree), and so on.

The morally incompetent are not going to suffer much from their sinful behavior. Only the morally competent are able to suffer from sin.

adultery — Agustino

punishment — Agustino

immoral — Agustino

debauchery — Agustino

punishment — Agustino

punishment — Agustino

liberal-progressive — Agustino

adultery — Agustino

adultery — Agustino

adultery — Agustino

Ad infinitum. Honestly, why don't you demand punishment for all the Seven Wickednesses of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth? No more suffering is caused by subsidiary sin of adultery than by any of the Big Seven. Criminalizing, investigating, prosecuting and punishing people for pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth would certainly be a tonic for a debauched immoral society (like ours, I suppose).

Why pick on adultery? Mortal flesh is prone to many errors. "All we like sheep have gone astray, every one in his own way." What's so special about adultery? Coveting, envying, raging, gluttons cause at least as much havoc in this world than adulterers, though it may be less personal.

Perhaps the heat of your rage over adultery owes its high temperature to pride. Perhaps adultery is so offensive because it is, among other things, a blow to the esteem in which we hold our selves, an attack on the sufficiency of our value to another person. "What more than ME could you possibly want or need, you ungrateful wretch?"

No, I'm not about to start making my philosophical decisions based on what "I feel is good". — Metaphysician Undercover

It is probably the case that you do, in fact, make philosophical decisions based on what you feel is good. This isn't a bug in you, it's a feature of human beings. Emotion WILL affect how we think whether we like it or not.

We are not exactly slaves to our feelings; feelings can be overridden, but overriding a feeling means that we have to deal with the feeling, and even in dealing with what we think is an emotional distortion, our thinking may be further affected by emotion.

Emotions are part of the way we think. We can't separate them out. We just have to deal with them.

A question from someone not from the USA: why do purported remarks by the founding fathers have a quasi-religious importance to so many Americans? This stuff can have an irrationalist edge, as seen from Abroad. — mcdoodle

When Lincoln (not a founding father) wrote the Gettysburg Address, briefly referencing founding documents, Jefferson (a founding father) had been dead only 37 years--not a long time. The Revolution of 1776 was only 87 years before. The past (which Faulkner says is never past anyway) just wasn't that far back. The rhetorical connections between founding documents, founding authors, and later rhetoric and authors has been continuous.

between the 11th century (like... 1066) and the present there have been 1000+ years and some very significant discontinuities to British history. (Plus there were hundreds of years of British history before Bill the Bastard arrived on the scene.) Specifically American and not British Colonial history dates back to 1783--233 years -- 240 if you count 1776 as the beginning. Our founding documents are much younger than yours are.

In our jurisprudence, yours too--no? precedent is important and our most important precedent is the constitution. In political rhetoric, claiming authority from the founding documents is still feasible -- that's what the gun lobby and the Amendment II is all about. The Brexit campaign wisely didn't reach back to 1066 for guidance. You don't have a constitution whose sacred meaning you can squabble over.

There is a certain amount of cultic attention being paid to the founding documents. Our sacred documents are over protected (like they were the tablets from Mount Sinai) while you have yours out on a table -- covered by glass, but still, sitting on a wooden table. At least they were in 1989. Britain has an abundant supply of cultic documents, objects, battlefields, castles, crypts, cathedrals, saints, palaces, princes (of varying caliber), actual crown jewels, great estates belonging to the once fabulously wealthy ruling elite, and so on. Our relatively puny list of sacred objects, documents, and places must bear a lot of heavy traffic. Plus none of our stuff is very old, unless we start counting aboriginal stuff, whom we all tried very hard to get rid of.

You have the royal family and we have the Daughters of the American Revolution--more than a few of whom are dingbats.

So, there you are. That's why.

Videos like this make me trigger happy.

The University of Chicago's 2016 welcome letter includes the following paragraph:

"Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called 'trigger warnings,' we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual 'safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own."