About
A site dedicated to critical thinking in any subject, but the main belief is that individual freedom is the highest moral good. All issues published on this site will (hopefully) be analyzed with a strict adherence to logical & critical analysis even if such analysis doesn’t necessarily support a belief in freedom itself.
For freedom, this includes strong beliefs in property rights, self defense rights, and social freedom. The right to be yourself is absolute so long as that right doesn’t interfere with the rights of others. As the axiom goes:
The right to wave your arms, stops at the edge of the next man’s nose.
& As John Galt said:
“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
Continuing on freedom, this also includes economic freedom and property rights. While capitalism has been seen by many throughout the ages as somehow more unjust than attempts to centralize control, for today it is the only system we have which works towards maximizing individual freedom and therefore is seen as a moral good in and of itself.
Additionally, on the view of force itself. While maximizing freedom necessitates minimizing force used against individuals or other entities, pragmatically force is still needed in various situations as pacifism is suicide by other means. As John Stuart Mill stated:
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
Lastly, along with a belief in economic markets, there is a strong belief in the marketplace of ideas. A belief that the conversation itself is useful in helping us learn more about the issues of today. Therefore, all ideas and challenges are very, very welcome on any subject. Business trends, leadership, science & technology, philosophy, politics, religion, history… anything.
Reader.
I think this is a great post. One thing that I find the most helpful is number five. Sometimes when I write, I just let the flow of the words and information come out so much that I loose the purpose. It’s only after editing when I realize what I’ve done. There’s defiantly a lot of great tips here I’m going to try to be more aware of.
Hello, just needed you to know I have added your internet site to my Google bookmarks as a consequence of your extraordinary blog layout. But seriously, I think your webblog has certainly one of the finest theme I’ve found. It really helps make reading your blog much easier. Have you ever severely considered blogging for money? there is a website http://www.christian-lovers.com/ that pays you to write articles, you would be good at it.
I appreciate your kind words and support. Due to a pretty busy day job though, I haven’t been writing nearly as much as I’d like, so while I do think about a future in writing and might take you up on your site advice (though I am not religious), I have to get through a few things I think and get back to writing at least a few times a week consistently before I want to push outwardly.
But who knows… not to give my age away, but almost 4 decades on this planet and I still have little idea on how to answer the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I do have lots of philosophical answers as to who I want to be, which I believe strongly is more important than career choice anyway, but for what I want to do… there’s ideal, writing and speaking, and then there’s a need to pay the bills
Hopefully some day soon I can return to this – it is a goal.
Thank you again.
~Michael S. Langston
Funny, your webpage formats beautifuly on my new iPhone, didnt look quite right on my old peice of junk.
Odd that – I hope it’s working better though I haven’t made any recent changes as I’m not writing that much right now (hopefully I can return to it soon).
But wanted to note in case you blog as well – the iPhone setup was a free plugin – as you saw, it works very well and functions for Droid phones and other things as well.
If you’re interested: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/
I truly loved this brilliant article. Please continue this awesome work. Regards, Duyq.
I don’t go along all of the details outlined by you, but you do make a strong case!
Thank you. This is actually one of my preferred compliments as it is something I strive for.
While some of my articles without question voice my frustrations more strongly than I’d like, my goal isn’t necessarily to change minds, but to open up a thought process and get people to contemplate those things they believe in more deeply.
For some, this process will simply reinforce what they believe. & in that, they will still become stronger for having gone through the trouble.
For others, a rethinking might indeed change opinions on some items.
In the end, we’re all stronger for having the conversation and I think, the more thoughtful conversations we can all engage in, the stronger critical thinkers we all become.
& as my personal life goal is to live life without illusions (IE – remove biases from my analytic skills), critical thinking is very important to me.
& while the full goal is of course impossible, I think attempting to reach it is a requirement for me to lead the kind of life I wish.
But in the end, if I could impart anything on anyone, it would be about critical thinking. It would not be specific ideas.
But now I’m rambling… so I’ll return to the beginning.
Thank you very much for your kind words. Hopefully I begin writing more consistently soon and I’d love to hear your opinion. If you prefer not to post comments, feel free to email me langston.michael@detailedabstractions.com.
Regards,
Michael S. Langston
Just two short succinct words for Fianna Fail’s Brian Cowen – good riddance! Why did this take so long?
You have created an exceptional blog – thoroughly enjoying reading the different articles but also finding the structure of your site is exceptionally intuitive!! Keep up the good work! Many thanks. Dacia Chilek in Xianyang
You’re very kind to say so.
Thank you,
~Michael S. Langston
individual freedom is the highest moral good This is so true
Agreed – conversely assuming that others need help in order to survive is condescending and arrogant, but mostly I try to stay on the positive side of the argument
Thank you for reading.
Regards,
~Michael S. Langston