An acquaintance of mine recently urged one of my best friends in the very small rural town in which I live to get a permit and buy himself a weapon. “Everyone is doing it,” he said, including himself and his daughter. I suppose he feels it necessary to be armed to protect himself against would-be…
Strange as it may seem, I want to defend the claim that Christianity is, for all intents and purposes, no longer a vital force in this culture. I would say at the outset, however, that even if it is true that Christianity on life support in our postmodern culture, there are certainly many good people…
The central pillar of Jungian psychology is his notion of archetypes, which he discovered by analyzing his patients’ dreams and a careful study of myths, archaic symbols, and even fairy tales. Jung defines archetypes as follows: “. . .there are present in every psyche forms which are unconscious but nonetheless active — living dispositions, ideas…
When philosophers first started exploring the human mind in a study that eventually became psychology, there was virtual unanimity that the human mind was comprised of a number of “faculties.” This eventually became known as “faculty psychology,” which, I am given to understand, is no longer accepted by all members of the psychology fraternity. I,…
James Madison, who wrote the Constitution in close association with his friend Thomas Jefferson, did not think a Bill of Rights was necessary. Alexander Hamilton agreed and said in a lengthy discussion of a possible Bill of Rights in Federalist Papers #84, “The Constitution is its own Bill of Rights.” These men worried that if…
Bernie Sanders has recently posted a meme on Facebook saying that “The path to a free and open Internet is to reclassify it as a telecommunications service so that we can ensure equal access to and for all.” That may seem odd, given the high prices of some telecommunications today, such as cell phones. But…
In the truly remarkable seven-part HBO series on John Adams there is one of those defining moments that almost redeems the American movie-making industry, allowing us to forget for a moment that so many movies today are just technical display with no plot and maximum sex and violence. That moment occurs immediately after the representatives…
The NRA is at it again. They want the Supreme Court to read the Constitution the way they do, to agree that the Second Amendment permits minors to carry guns outside the home. The story reads, in part: The Second Amendment, at its core, spells out not one, but two, rights when it protects “the…
Order in the Court by Randall Auxier Here is Mitch McConnell pounding on a little piece of wood instead of a Democrat. A gavel is an interesting symbol. Obviously it symbolizes authority, but more importantly, it marks beginnings and endings. The flow of time is interrupted by the opening rap, and a finite and…
A Window in Your Heart by Randall Auxier A gas station in Pennsylvania, just north of Gettysburg. $3.45 a gallon. There is music beneath the canopy as we feed our machines. I know it well, and so do you. . . . The Mississippi Delta is shining like a National Guitar . . . .…