The Only Orthodoxy is Reason

Racism
Function: noun
Date: 1933 1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race […]

In Leviathan, Hobbes entertained a thought experiment in which he reduced man to his fundamental essence, so as to reason, free of doctrinal prejudice, from first principles to a coherent theory on how man ought to be governed.   Starting with the now-famous presumption that life for this primitive man was “nasty, brutish, and short,” […]

When one has a major decision to make, it’s important to take a step back and understand not only the decision and its ramifications, but some key assumptions that lead you to the point of considering one’s various alternatives.  Are the known facts of the case correct or in error?  Does the line of reasoning […]

Here’s a simple question that arose during a conversation I was having with a friend of mine, to which I realized I had no satisfactory answer:
Are violent video games sinful?
For those not familiar with the medium of video games, it is a multi-billion dollar per year industry.  The median age of video game players in […]

During the last eight years, America has been especially committed to the ideal of spreading democracy around the globe, largely due to the efforts of the Bush administration.  The administration expressed this ideal through the Bush Doctrine, which, for the first time, explicitly dedicated America to aiding democratic nations because they were (nominally) democratic, regardless of whether […]

Jeremy Bentham is credited with the description and inception of legal positivism in response to what he viewed as often arbitrary and unfair application of law within the English common law system. Positivism is an attempt to define the essence and nature of the law […]

On January 20th, Barack Obama will take the Presidential oath of office and bring to an end the most contentious and divisive presidency in a generation, the presidency of George W. Bush.  A major reason for the Bush administration’s unpopularity has been its expansion of state power and influence in a manner not seen since […]

This week, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced the voting results of its induction balloting from 2008. Jim Rice and Rickey Henderson will be inducted into Cooperstown this summer after receiving the required 75% of the vote. Former A’s and Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire, however, will not be inducted; he received 21% of the vote.
Mark […]

Governor Blagojevich of Illinois is in a significant amount of trouble for allegedly attempting to sell President-Elect Obama’s vacant Senate seat.  Since the date of his indictment, the airwaves have been dominated by endless media stories speculating on the identity of various potential ‘buyers’ for the seat, as well as what other acts of corruption […]

“If people only understood the rank injustice of the money and banking system, there would be a revolution by morning.” – Andrew Jackson
What did Aristotle know that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke doesn’t? Aristotle, as well as Adam Smith, Jean Baptiste Say, and Frederic Bastiat and all the classical economic thinkers in history all knew […]

Last September I wrote about the curious ubiquity of rock, paper, scissors as a means to legitimately resolve conflict among kids and adults here in South Korea. As I noted, Koreans use rock, paper, scissors as a way to decide all kinds of issues, from the trivial (in what order students will play a classroom […]

As the world economy continues to deteriorate, as the American government continues, in essence, to nationalize the top tiers of business and industry, and as the President-Elect continues to hint that even greater federal intervention is coming, likely in the guise of New Deal-esque programs, I’ve noticed one remarkable common theme among all the rhetoric:  […]

Well, it is the beginning of a new election cycle, and with the changing of the Presidency, we are seeing the information revolution beginning to affect politics directly. President-elect Obama has already begun his ‘youtube-side chats’, where he addresses the nation via short recorded videos published on […]

The essay below was written by Ryan Painter, a prosecuting attorney for the State of Indiana.  While the essay violates several, if not all, of the Rules of The Only Orthodoxy, the Administration has decided to publish it as an excellent example of the sense of one side of the culture war in which this […]

On October 10th, the Connecticut state supreme court ruled that homosexuals could not be denied the right to marry.  Connecticut joined Massachusetts as the only other state where same sex marriage is legal (since California no longer allows same sex marriage).  Not coincidentally, in both states same sex marriage was approved by the courts, not […]