Briefly

I don’t watch televised political entertainment. I worked in politics far too long to have a stomach for that anymore. But I see photos of the Democrats’ recent debates and can’t help thinking they look like desperate contestants on a TV game show. Instead of being there to win money, though, they’re competing to see who can promise to steal the most money from you — to give to someone else. Such people who preach about the virtues of government giving money to all sorts of people who they claim they want to help never seem to understand that governments have no money of their own. The only way to hand money to one person is to steal it from someone else who has earned it. Taking money from a person without his consent is theft, whether it’s done by a common mugger or by a politician. Something which is immoral when done by one person doesn’t become virtuous when done by politicians calling themselves a government. Theft is still theft. It’s immoral. Modern Democrats and Republicans are united in their willingness to endorse this theft. Republicans just don’t want quite as much of it. Both positions are evil.

It’s hard to believe that any book could have ever cost just 25 cents, much less one that could have survived since I was a tiny boy. I’m sometimes surprised by which things from my childhood have managed to stay with me for all these years, but I’m not surprised to still have “Good Night, Little Bear.” When I was the tiniest of little boys, this was my favorite book. I’m told that I used to carry it around with me. Everybody around me got tired of reading this story, but I asked for it over and over again. I was delighted by the question of whether the little bear was fooling Papa Bear. The story tickled my little brain with the concept of how people could fool one another but without the malice involved in lying. I think everybody can connect a little bit more with the child he or she once was by being able to touch and re-experience such things from their past. Such artifacts tell us a lot about where we came from and how we became what we are. This is something from childhood which makes me happy.

A friend of mine got engaged today and she posted a dozen pictures from the proposal. (No, it’s not the one pictured here.) She and her fiancé went to a very remote and picturesque location — which would normally be quiet and deserted — but there was still someone to take a bunch of pictures of this very intimate moment. I seem to be the one who’s out of step with society on this point, but I am very uncomfortable with the degree to which we are turning our private lives into something that looks like “reality TV.” If this is what you want for your life, that’s your business. I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong. But I don’t want to live out my intimate moments for the world to share. I don’t want to be stage-managing the production of my life while I play a part for the world to watch later. If that’s the life you want, that’s your business, but when I am fortunate enough to ask a woman to marry me, it will be a moment of personal connection between that woman and me. The world will not be watching, then or later.