Is Science Catching Up to the Objectivist Ethics?

found online by Raymond

 
From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

An interesting article appeared in the Washington Post. In Being empathetic is good, but it can hurt your health, Jennifer Breheny Wallace reports:

Empathy — the ability to tune into and share another person’s emotion from their perspective — plays a crucial role in bringing people together. It’s the joy you feel at a friend’s wedding or the pain you experience when you see someone suffering.

It’s an essential ingredient for building intimacy in relationships, says Robin Stern, associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. “When someone feels seen and heard by you,” she says, “they begin to trust you.”

But this seemly positive emotion can also have a downside, particularly if someone gets so consumed by another’s feelings that they neglect their own feelings and needs. Stern says those who regularly prioritize others’ emotions over their own are more susceptible to experiencing anxiety or low-level depression. [emphasis added]

Another researcher quoted in the article, Jamil Zaki, offers, “Being supportive of those we care about is among our most cherished and important roles, but it’s also one that’s fraught: We want to be there for someone but not lose ourselves.” [emphasis added]

If this sounds like a [partial] plug for rational selfishness, you’d be right in my view. I think what these people have in mind is rational selfishness, although not necessarily consciously. Also not mentioned is the term altruism. But that’s what Wallace has in mind—again, probably not consciously—when she talks about when “someone gets so consumed by another’s feelings that they neglect their own feelings and needs.” Self-neglect is exactly what altruism demands. And rational selfishness is what Zaki has in mind when he urges us “not to lose ourselves.”

Of course, altruism saps one’s self-esteem, as well. In fact, lack of self-esteem is probably a deeper, “root” cause of the anxiety and depression.

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Shut Up and Dribble: Efforts to Silence Parkland Students


 
Basketball legend LeBron James was reminiscing about the role models of his youth.

When I was growing up there were, like, three jobs that you looked for inspiration, or you felt like these were the people that could give me. Like, it was the President of the United States, it was whoever was the best in sports, and then it was, like, the greatest musician at the time.

Those role models represented something distant and unattainable, but they still inspired.

You never thought you can be them, but you can grab inspiration from them.

There were also sources of more immediate inspiration. They became role models in the immediate neighborhood.

There was a neighborhood African-American cop, and he was cool as hell, come around. I felt like I could be him. Yes, I could be him.

There was more, of course. Some discussion about his own attempt to be a better man, to be worthy as a role model.

Then came a comment that placed a conservative target on the back of LeBron James. He talked about what happens when a role model does not take that responsibility seriously: the added responsibility it puts on others.
Continue reading “Shut Up and Dribble: Efforts to Silence Parkland Students”

Dolan Says Catholics Are Not Welcome in the Democratic Party

found online by Raymond

 
From James Wigderson:

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says there is no longer a home for Catholics in the Democratic Party.

“The ‘big tent’ of the Democratic Party now seems a pup tent,” Dolan wrote.

Dolan, a former Archbishop of Milwaukee, points to two issues, school choice and abortion, that are pushing Catholics away from the Democratic Party, if not into the Republican Party that Catholics once distrusted.

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I KNOW What Jesus has Done for Me

found online by Raymond

 
From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Hebrews 11 goes on to detail what these people of faith supposedly faced as earthly voices of the one true God:

Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

I say supposedly, because there’s no evidence outside of the Bible for these things actually happening. Believing them to be true requires faith. And that’s the essence of faith: believing without evidence. Now intellectuals among the faithful love to argue that their faith is reasonable, but I find their arguments unpersuasive. Is it reasonable to believe a man who was cruelly executed on a Roman cross resurrected himself from the dead three days later? Is it reasonable to believe that this same man was born of a virgin, turned water into wine, walked on water, walked through walls, teleported out of the midst of a crowd, healed blindness with spit and dirt, and fed thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and even fewer fish? Of course not. Believing these things to be true requires faith, a faith that rejects what we know objectively to be true. We know that virgins don’t have babies, water can’t be turned into wine (though my wife wishes this were true), people can’t walk on water or walk through walls, blindness can’t be healed through spit and dirt, and it’s impossible to feed five thousand men, and an unspecified number of women and children with five loaves of Wonder Bread and two perch filet. (Now, Jesus teleporting out of a crowd without being seen; that’s possible. SYFY channel, people. It’s all real.)

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Shootout At The Not OK Corral: If Trump Fires The Special Prosecutor

found online by Raymond

 
From Shaun Mullen at The Moderate Voice:

I have long believed that Donald Trump would not fire Robert Mueller despite his on-again, off-again threats to do so because saner heads would warn him that the collateral damage would be great. But most of the saner heads have left the building, including much of his legal team, and the president’s behavior has become so maniacal as he starts a trade war, threatens a hot war, undermines the FBI and reaches out to Fox News for fresh West Wing blood to suck on, that I am no longer so sure. Which begs a very big question: What happens to the special prosecutor’s wide-ranging investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the collusion of the Trump campaign and candidate himself if he gets the ax?

Here are some things to consider:

* By law Trump cannot fire Mueller and it would fall to a Justice Department subaltern, so the question becomes who would pull the trigger?

A new acting attorney general is the best guess since AG Jeff Sessions has recused himself and, it is my belief, would resign if Mueller is summarily dismissed, as most certainly would Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller in the first place and has shown flashes of independence in defending the special prosecutor’s work.

It would fall to the new AG to decide how vigorously — or even whether — to continue the Russia investigation, and whether to appoint a new special counsel. In any event, a Mueller successor would do Trump’s bidding.

* The Republican congressional majority will stay on the right side of Trump and the wrong side of history, so who will push back if Mueller goes?

You can’t turn around in this mess without bumping into Watergate analogies, but 1974 was then and 2018 is now, and while Richard Nixon faced congressional fortitude and a public outcry, today most GOP congressfolk and many senators are abject cowards and Trump doesn’t give a damn about what people beyond his base think.

Technically, congressional oversight (such as it is) related to the scandal would remain. State prosecutions, which are immune to Trump’s near absolute right to pardon perps for federal crimes, would proceed.

* But without the full force of a federal investigation, isn’t it likely that all of Mueller’s work — including those 19 indictments — will come to naught?

Hypothetically, yes. But there two very big wildcards, one of which is the 435 House seats being contested in the 2018 midterm elections. That will have a clarifying effect on some Republicans, who already are in an uphill fight to keep control of the House and would find it difficult to campaign on all of Trump’s accomplishments (sic) when they are constantly on the defensive.

Democratic candidates, with the wind of public opinion at their backs, would have a potent weapon in crying obstruction, corruption and cover-up, further hurting GOP chances to hold onto the lower chamber.

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NRA Calls For More Common-Sense Gun Deaths

found online by Raymond

 
From The Onion:

FAIRFAX, VA—In response to the March For Our Lives protest led by student activists who survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, the National Rifle Association reportedly issued a statement Monday calling for more common-sense gun deaths. “Now, more than ever, what we need are more shooting deaths resulting from defending one’s family from home invaders or getting revenge—the types of clear, logical gun deaths with widespread approval,” said NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre…

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The Right Way to Fix Facebook

found online by Raymond

 
From CATO’s Julian Sanchez:

As anyone who’s uploaded an ill-advised photo from a college party knows, Facebook is where your old mistakes come back to haunt you years later. That turns out to hold just as true for the company itself — a fact executives at the behemoth social network have been discovering to their chagrin this week, amid international furor over the political strategy firm Cambridge Analytica’s illicit access to a vast trove of Facebook user data.

Facebook’s mistake, in this case, was a classic case of taking a good idea too far. The idea was that the company’s massive map of users’ social connections could be put to innovative uses if that data were opened up to outside developers — allowing all sorts of third-party apps to painlessly add a social component.

Unfortunately, the company also made a critical misjudgment: It assumed that if users were willing to share personal information with their friends, they were also willing to let their friends re-share that information.

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Parkland Teens Shred Rick Santorum’s ‘Completely Absurd’ CPR Insult

found online by Raymond

 
From Tommy Christopher:

Republicans are desperate in their attempts to silence young people who protest gun violence. But the kids just fight back twice as hard.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) stepped in it on Sunday when he suggested that young people “learn CPR” rather than petition their government for stronger gun laws. On CNN’s “New Day” on Monday morning, Parkland survivors Lauren and David Hogg reacted to tape of Santorum’s remarks.

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