“Physicians who remain confused about the difference between killing a patient and allowing a patient to die should not be practicing medicine.” Ira Byock, director of Palliative Care at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center The Hippocratic oath is an ancient Greek text…
I have read, and written, a lot of comments on online news stories. One time I saw a comment that particularly intrigued me, though not in the way its writer intended. I don’t remember what the story was about, but…
Conservative intellectuals tend to be a dismal sort and by natural disposition pessimistic. But perhaps we shouldn’t be so fast to blame them, especially when you considers the history of mankind and in particularly, the sorry history of human governance. From starting unnecessary…
Recently I had to deal with a person who’s very sure of their own opinions and seems to have little respect for those of others. This encounter left me thinking, “As far as this person is concerned, I’m not entitled…
“Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Winston Churchill The role of knowledge in political decision-making has been a central topic in political theory and social science…
There’s a phrase that’s often invoked as if it should be some sort of magical “last word” in a dispute: ‘It’s the law.’ If something can be said to be ‘the law,’ it’s spoken of as if it’s automatically right…
