Who Were the Sea Peoples?

My friend Sheldon Richman contends that , "As Long as Government Exists, Our Freedom Is Insecure." But, of course, for every society that ever existed without a government, either that society disappeared, it gave rise to a government, or it was conquered by a society with a government. So if Sheldon's title is correct, logically we ought to also note that "When Government Does Not Exist, Our Freedom Is Insecure." Or, more simply, freedom is insecure . Which, I think, is correct.

Because while researching a review I am writing, I accidentally turned up this fantastic site , which includes tropes like... idiot hero .

Not just valuable "to us" because of whatever utility it might yield: "Tolkien’s sense of the supernatural’s indwelling within the natural further fostered a keen ecological sensibility and an ensuing ethic of stewardship... ''As all of reality bears the mark of its divine maker, it has intrinsic value and an independent identity rather than being merely the raw material for sating human desires. Conservation of nature is therefore an act of pietas and vigilance on its behalf is a vocation." -- " The Holiness of Hobbitry "

The wild tobacco plant is able to detect which species of insect is eating it, and adjust its defenses based on that fact.

What makes a person happy is knowing the right thing to do, and doing it. When someone is disoriented, and does not know the right thing to do, giving them more and more choices only makes them more and more miserable. Fifty-inch plasma screen TVs cannot cure spiritual emptiness.

Would anyone use this as an argument that human rape is therefore morally unproblematic? If not, then there is no reason to think other arguments of the same form are valid either.

I often hear people state the above as if by doing so they are proving that they are a good person. But as Rod Dreher came to recognize, not just golden calves, but things that if viewed from the right perspective can be quite positive, will turn into idols if taken as more important than they are: Once Dante unmasked this [family worship] within me, I saw that I too had made false idols of family and place. It's not that loving family and loving place are bad, but that are only good relative to the ultimate good, which is unity with God. We were all professed Christians, but it sometimes seemed that the family's real religion was ancestor worship. -- How Dante Can Save Your Life , p. 125 I had the experience, as a child, of realizing that, while my family's apparent religion was Catholicism, it's true religion was social respectability. This affected my relationship with religion for many, many years. Nothing is more important than The Good itself: anything else ...