Stratagems of the Right

October 17, 1777, the British surrender at Saratoga (Revolutionary War: 1775-1783) Why did American colonists fight the British Empire? The laws and taxes colonists were subject to were far fewer and less draconian than those in the America of the twenty-first century. Was it truly for the old battle cry, "No taxation without representation?" If the British Empire gave American colonists a representative to vote for and/or cut taxes, could war have been avoided? Or, did colonists want something more? The English posterity that migrated to America, and reared generations thereafter, were of a different stock, a perhaps more rebellious and adventuresome sort. The English of American colonies no longer considered themselves part of the English people of the British Empire. If they had, perhaps a peaceful compromise could've been worked out. As it was, the conflict we call the "Revolutionary War" consisted of a king who wanted to rule over a separate people and a se...

What makes happiness? Let's avoid a discussion of the chemical cocktails that please the brain and, instead, focus on the ancient-Greek word for happiness, eudaimonia, more-aptly defined as "human flourishing," to narrow our inquiry. In the modern age, we eventually grow past material needs and desires of our various bread and circuses. So, what actually causes human flourishing? The outward quality of available food, televisions, games, movies, music, and various other forms of entertainment has all dramatically improved over the decades. And for those preferring the inward quality of bygone eras, classic forms of the same are largely available at a much lower cost in the modern day. Can a man from the 1980s, playing Galaga on his Atari and watching '80s action films, be as a happy as one playing modern games and watching modern programs of 2021? Can a woman from the 1980s, with the fashion and makeup adornments of the era, be as happy as a modern one? If the quality...

As you rightly inferred before clicking:  spoilers ahead. The 1982 film, Blade Runner , is my personal favorite. While I'm not a connoisseur of movies or other fictional programs on our screens, I recognize the value of the medium and appreciate it when done well. Story-telling through audio-visual mediums like film is an art that takes a talent of intuition few could be successful at. How do we measure success for film? Is it box-office performance at the time of release? Sales of the film decades later? By the opinion of today's elite critics or, perhaps, an average of elite critic views over the decades? I have no idea. I can only speak for why I enjoyed the film when I first saw it as a pre-teen and why I continue to enjoy it into my adulthood. I loved the film as a pre-teen/teen due to its noir science-fiction atmosphere. It evoked a darkness and beauty through its visuals and music that both depressed and lifted my spirits [*1]. But the true value of the film that stands...

Antiquity reserved two forms of punishment for the most extreme crimes: death and exile. At times when civilization's jurisdictions were more limited in geographic scope, punishment by exile, sending someone into the wild and socially isolating him, was possible in a manner that is less easy to do in modern times. Criminals are punished by death or isolation to protect people from the possibility one convicted of an extreme crime might commit a future crime, but also to deter future criminals from engaging in that crime. While both forms of punishment ended a convicted criminal's participation in society, exile was a form of social death for the criminal that spared the people from the messy business of execution. If a criminal did something truly awful but did not pose a direct future threat to where ending his life would be necessary for the protection of others, exile was a sensible option. A heretic, for example, might face exile in lieu of execution. The heretic is punishe...