Civil Horizon
Free Thoughts, Adequately Expressed

About five times as many Americans work in the private sector as work for government.

Estimates of how much more government employees earn than their equivalently-educated neighbors who have private sector jobs range from a low of 17% (source: the CBO: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52637) to a high of 78% (source: Cato, referring to Federal jobs only, https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-worker-pay), but it is indisputable that private sector jobs carry a vastly higher risk of termination for bad behavior or because market circumstances change.  Only in senior management – and for those who have the highest-level educational credentials – do private sector employees earn more than their public sector friends.

So for the vast majority of people, working for the government is...

There is a God. There is no God.

Unlike an assertion along the lines of ‘there is milk in the refrigerator’, neither of these statements is either verifiable or, on the flip side, falsifiable; how, therefore, can they be useful? Further, the closer we look, the clearer it becomes that what people mean by ‘God’ is all over the map.

Oh, sure, fundamentalists of every faith may think that they know exactly what God is, and how He thinks and acts; but isn’t that rather presumptuous? Such confidence assumes that the oral and written traditions of their particular faiths reflect God’s past actions and present intentions with perfect clarity, and that they may be interpreted by mankind with total confidence.

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Who – or what – is God? In the Judeo-Christian traditions there seems to ...

President Trump and his allies are enjoying the media’s own goals http://thehill.com/homenews/media/340564-media-errors-fuel-trump-attacks, but the factual errors in these stories are a relatively unimportant symptom of the media’s bias problem.

Who cares, really, that only four intelligence agencies –  the CIA, FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency – had contributed to the conclusion that the Russians had interfered in the 2016 election, instead of the 17 agencies originally referenced by The New York Times and The Associated Press? As I’ve previously written, I – and, I assume, most people – believe that those four agencies were right – the Russians probably did their best to sow confusion and distrust about our election process, and i...

My first reaction to the recent Project Veritas undercover videos of Van Jones saying “The Russia thing is just a big nothingburger” and CNN supervising producer John Bonifield patiently explaining that while there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, his ultimate boss Jeff Zucker was pushing back against news about changes in policy in favor of more coverage of the “bullshit” Russia story to garner higher ratings, was to laugh.  I had long since concluded that despite the frantic hopes of the Democratic left and members of the press, insofar as they are distinguishable, such collusion hadn’t happened.

As I have thought about these videos and, more broadly, the never-ending quest of the left to delegitimize if not rid themselves of our preside...

Last night, prior to a board meeting, the trustees of Harlem Academy met with the school’s soon-to-be-graduating eighth grade class. The marvelous young lady with whom I spoke at some length will be heading off to a school in Massachusetts next year; she hopes to become a physician some day.

She asked me to explain why I work with this school, and why on a voluntary basis. Her attitude was one of genuine, polite curiosity.

I told her that the idea that everybody should have a chance to accomplish important things is one of the noblest characteristics of our country – it’s one of the values that bring us together. We are a nation of strivers, and fervent believers in merit.

Harlem Academy provides bright young people from underprivileged, inner-city backgrounds with a truly first class e...

Over the last couple of months, I have been doing a lot of thinking about President Trump and our country’s bitter partisan divides.

As longtime Civil Horizon readers know, I have mixed feelings about our new president – in whom, from a policy perspective, I see strong positives and equally strong negatives; my conflicted feelings mirror those of the voices of the establishment right – particularly, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and National Review. I would describe these views as not NeverTrump, but a distinct mixture of hopes and fears.

At the same time, the voices of the establishment left – particularly the “news” pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post – and mainstream (meaning: of the left) broadcast outlets like CNN and MSNBC, can only be descri...

Take a moment to think again about one of the most important sentences ever written:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, the Founders set out a proudly universalist vision of natural rights. If all men are created equal, then preferences for one tribe, sect or class over another, whether in law or custom, are wrong.

This statement was a (literally) revolutionary rejection of the caste systems – and tribe-based identities – of other nations of the world. It spoke of universal natural rights...

I really don’t think you care what I think about abortion and, for the most part, I’m ok with that. Most likely, either you think it is a morally neutral medical procedure and every woman’s natural right, or you think it’s murder, straight up. It is, ah, unlikely that a blog post is going to convince you to change positions.

Even so, I might be able to convince you to rethink the role of government as regards abortion and other matters of widespread and profound disagreement.

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I recently had a conversation with someone who is terribly afraid that the new Administration will defund Planned Parenthood. I told her that I think that the government should defund Planned Parenthood – for the exact same reason, ironically, that I wouldn’t support an outright abortion ban; I also told...

Two days ago I slipped in some mud while carrying my kayak up a hill. I caught myself, but in doing so I seem to have hurt something deep in my right shoulder. Since then the right side of my torso has ached.

This morning, at the suggestion of my Beloved Spouse, I went outside to sit in the hot tub by our pool. I am not really a hot tub guy – I have probably used it a dozen times in as many years – but she thought the heat and bubble jets might help lessen my shoulder pain.

So I sat in the steaming water under a steel-gray sky; to my surprise, my thoughts turned to an old friend.

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Doug and I went to boarding school together. We got to know each other through rowing; he was a big, athletic guy – a gentle giant. Though we were two years apart, we became fast friends.

For we were n...

The Idea – 1/11/16

Three months from today, I am going to set out from Los Angeles by bicycle, hoping to ride to Old Lyme, CT. I have dreamed of doing this for thirty years; it’s now or never.

Over the next three months, I’ll give a lot of thought to the logistics, and try to get fit enough so that I’ll make it.

Just now, though, I have to tell the Beloved Spouse about the plan. I’m not sure she’ll be thrilled.

Day Zero – 4/10/16

This is the first in a series of daily posts that I intend to write over the next six or seven weeks about the attempt I am about to make at riding my bicycle across the country.

I sent three bikes – my two beautiful new steel Mariposas, pictured below at home just after their arrival a month ago, and my much older carbon fiber Parlee – on ahead to Los Angeles w...