Well, I had an long day (12 hours is long for me) and am fighting off a bug hanging in the wings. So, for tonight … a few hasty thoughts and we’ll see where that gets us:

Perhaps if we accept the ontological aspect of human dignity as a starting point in a discussion on abortion that might help make the argument more useful. For discussion based on human dignity can serve as on both sides. The dignity of the mother and father as well as the child. One side can point to the necessity of insuring that the parents dignity, specifically the recognition of their personal ethical choices need to be respected. The other to the fact that human life, any human life, needs to be treated exceptionally. Forming policies and arguments that respect both sides of this matter is the essential element. One which the radicals on both sides fail to accomplish.

A few Econ Nobel prizes ago (Stigler I think) taught me one lesson on investing by which I live … and which lead to my portfolio being dominated by index funds. Whether or not it really does beat playing the market or some other complicated (or simple) strategy (which Mr Stigler argues it indeed also does) … there is one thing it does really well, which might be more important. It take the time wasted on the whole investment aspect of life out of the equation. This years prize will be grist for plenty of later blog posts (after I get some reading on the matter behind me). But commenter JA, might need to re-orient his thinking some ultimately … as he has used the tragedy of the commons numerous times in discussions to amplify on why government intervention is necessary … but alas, when you study the matter … perhaps that assumption is wrong.

And getting wrong reminds me that a quote from Paul Collier’s book on Democracy keeps springing back. In which he notes that spreading democracy in the third world as a good thing to do … is an assumption both Mr Bush and Mr Soros agree. To bad it’s wrong.

Filed under: AbortionEconomics & TaxesForeign PolicyMark O.

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