Welcome to freakdom, Dave. It’ll be time to start a Web site soon, where you’ll type out everything in one huge paragraph.

I am sympathetic to the general form of Aristotle's view: the exercise of complex and more inclusive abilities is not anything in itself that is or necessarily should be valued over simple and less inclusive abilities. Rather, value depends on what the abilities are and the ends to which they are put.

... life is a flickering candle we all carry around. A gust of wind, a meaningless accident, a microsecond of carelessness, and it's out. Forever.

Children die every day because millions of us tell ourselves that caring is just as good as doing.

What humans want most of all, is to be right. Even if we're being right about our own doom. If we believe there are monsters around the next corner ready to tear us apart, we would literally prefer to be right about the monsters, than to be shown to be wrong in the eyes of others and made to look foolish.

In a morally healthy family the good of each member of a family includes and overlaps with the good of other members. When one family member flourishes, so typically do the others.

Which would prove I'm a monster, Arnie? Sacrificing the people I love for the fight? Or walking away from the fight to save the people i love?