A Few Good Links (vol. 23)

The semester is over.

1. What's wrong with rights? For one thing, they often leave forgotten the more important things, which are our duties. 
2. What is driving the bathroom wars? In part, it's that old-time gnosticism, or maybe manichaeism.
3. Did Jesus oppose poverty? No. He in fact praised it when undertaken for the right ends. Giving to the poor is something we do to help them, but also (and in a different way) to help ourselves--to allow ourselves to become less materially attached, but also to allow for the growth of charity. Charity, like any virtue, is something which exists between persons, and it exists without the intermediary of the state. To attempt to eradicate poverty is to attempt to make a liar out of Jesus, who told us that the poor we would always have.
4. Why do so man people like/support/vote for Trump? He is now winning a majority of Republicans, in mostly blue or pink states--but he won handily in the South (which was, granted, divided between many not Trump candidates. Note that there are a number of reasons why people are supporting him, but they are not necessarily good reasons, or (more to ht point) they are good reasons, but not applicable to supporting Trump. The man is good at selling snake oil, which is, I suppose, why he won the nomination.
5. Why are the popularizers of science so consistently bad at philosophy? And why does it seem like they all get worse as they attempt to embrace a role as "spokesmen of science?" Case in point: Bill Nye.
6. Why are our campuses such hotbeds of the worst kind of leftism? They are generally completely overrun by the social justice brownshirts and other crybullies that they are beginning to look like a Greek comedy (but one which will end in tragedy, no doubt).
7. Why does evil often triumph? Because no good deed goes unpunished, and every hero will have a day in court (and then jail).

Long live the new semester.