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There are essentially two types of human rights, positive and negative.

Negative rights are such things as free speech and freedom of assembly.

These rights require nothing more from others than to refrain from interfering with your exercise of them.

Positive rights on the other hand are quite different.

The right to medical care for instance entails a cost and someone must bear the responsibility for covering that cost.

All positive rights are redistributive in nature and foist the costs involved...

We can acquire knowledge from others, but not wisdom.

This is one of the fascinating differences between knowledge and wisdom.

We can borrow the knowledge of another, but not their wisdom.

This we must acquire on our own.

Two other words which people often mistakenly consider synonymous are wisdom and knowledge.

I consider knowledge to be the understanding of the way things, including ourselves, work.

It is the understanding of the nature of things.

Wisdom, on the other hand, is the best use of this knowledge for the improvement of ourselves and our world.

People often use the terms accurate and correct interchangeably as if they were synonymous. They are not.

The term correct deals with the truth or falsity of something.

The term accurate describes how closely a claim aligns with the actual features of something.

So, if I claim to be 6' tall, that is either correct or incorrect.

A claim regarding the distance from the earth to the moon may be either accurate or inaccurate.

The reason for the confusion is that the terms often overlap.

So, for...

We share 99.9% of our DNA with every other human on the planet.

The difference that makes us different is just 0.1% of our DNA.

I find it fascinating how significant a difference just 0.1% can make.

Some people are of the opinion that intuition is completely detached from observation and reason.

I don't think that is correct.

Instead, I think that our intuition makes use of those observations we have made in the past, and our reasoning regarding them.

Thus, the more observant and well reasoned a person is, the more accurate will be their intuitions.

A very interesting form of lying is that of bluffing.

The idea is to convince another that something is the case which is not.

A good liar makes for an excellent bluffer.

You need to be able to lie with a straight face.

One of the fascinating things about lies is that the more elaborate, detailed and unbelievable they are, the more likely they are to be believed.

This is because most people lack imagination and rarely ever suspect it in others.

The American writer Rob Henderson coined the term 'Luxury beliefs'.

Essentially, 'Luxury beliefs' are ideas that confer status on the wealthy or privileged while negatively impacting less affluent members of society who are less insulated from the consequences. Examples include supporting policies like "defund the police" from a position of privilege where one isn't directly affected by the resulting increase in crime, or advocating that marriage and the nuclear family are outdated, despite...

The famous curmudgeon H. L. Mencken once quipped that a person could never go bankrupt underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

On a similar note, I don't think a person could never go bankrupt overestimating the credulity of the American public.

Nietzsche wrote about the 'Will to Power'.

I think an interesting topic might be the 'Will to Believe'.

People appear to have a strong desire and need to believe in something.

I certainly do, but not being highly credulous myself, I'm...

Perhaps you, like I, have had someone say something like 'I lied' when what they have done instead is to have made a mistake.

This is sloppy language at its best.

In order for a statement to be a lie, the person making it must know or believe that it is untrue.

It is still a lie if the person thinks it is untrue, but it really is true.

Lying is all about intention.

'Oh! What a tangled web we weave

when once we practice to deceive.'

The idea that the universe is meaningless troubles some people for reasons which elude me.

If there were a meaning to the universe and our place in it, then it seems to me that a script has been laid out for us to follow and comply with.

Since the universe is meaningless however, you and I have an empty canvas upon which we can paint our own meaning.

If that isn't freedom, I don't know what is.

The greatest problem with dependency is that it is very easy to become dependent, but far from easy to break free from dependency once one has become dependent.

It is wise to avoid as many dependencies as is humanly possible. The withdrawal, like that of an alcoholic can be extremely painful if not fatal.

It has been noted that many who claim their boss is stupid would be out of a job if he were any more intelligent.

Likewise, many who decry government inefficiency fail to realize that it is only government's inefficiency which prevents it from inflicting more pain and injury upon us.

What is a person to make of those who refuse to hold the criminal elements of their society accountable?

Especially when their doing so harms innocent people. Recall 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska who was fatally stabbed on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The perpetrator Decarlos Brown, 34, was arrested shortly after the unprovoked attack and has been charged with murder. This person had been arrested and released 7 times before.

I am of the opinion that those...

As it has been noted, 'You are entitled to your opinions but not to your facts.

Facts are hard things, particularly when they contravene one's preferred viewpoint.

There are public figures, whom i will not name here, who claim that it is not a crime to enter the country illegally. Does that mean that illegal doesn't mean illegal?

A case can of course be made that entering the country without permission should not be a crime, but that is no argument against the fact that it currently clearly is a...

As the stupid person is more dangerous than the bad person, so the bullshitter is more dangerous than the liar.

The reason is that while the liar opposes the truth, the bullshitter simply has no regard for truth whatsoever.

For more on the topic of stupidity please see my book entitled 'Stupidity; 'The Enemy of the Good' which is available here: theotherdavidallen.com

If you're like me you have no doubt heard or seen in print the phrase, 'Too much democracy'.

What can that possibly mean?

The first hint comes from the fact that this phrase is almost exclusively used by those on the left.

I would proffer this as an explanation. 'When things don't go the way the lefties want, they blame it on too much democracy'

The phrase is completely ludicrous, but then, consider the source.

Why would you expect anything else?

Marc Anthony upon hearing that his beloved Cleopatra had committed suicide stabbed himself in the abdomen, only to learn that the account of her suicide was simply a rumor and probably spread by Cleopatra herself. He died in her arms, the victim of misinformation.

I am of the opinion that no person should be awarded a medical license who has not studied philosophy for at least two academic years and had better than passing grades.