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Authority and responsibility are commensurate. This is inescapable and inarguable. The idealistic, primarily of the political left, pretend and want others to pretend that one can exercise authority while evading responsibility. In idealistic jargon it is known as "leadership transparency". The authority and responsibility doctrine is based on the acknowledgement of reality whereas the unlimited authority dogma of the idealistic requires the slavish adherence to the superstition that reality is all in one's mind. Manipulate the psyche and manipulate reality. By the evidence of our senses nothing could be farther from the truth. In reality existence is primary and authority is limited by responsibility. You're welcome.

Former U.S. Navy SEAL Eric Greitens has written a book titled "Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for living a better life". The blurb from Amazon.com reads as follows: "You cannot bounce back from hardship. You can only move through it. There is a path through pain to wisdom, through suffering to strength, and through fear to courage if we have the virtue of resilience." Most advice books provide psychologistic remedies to life's difficulties. Magic answers to imaginary problems. Subjectivistic, deterministic, skeptical. One size fits all. No knowledge, no reality, no ethics. Thank God that someone is offering real solutions. Solutions that acknowledge reality: individuality and responsibility.

Republicans have put themselves in an intellectual and psychological box on the issue of same-sex marriage by ignoring science and by refusing to propose alternatives. Same-sex marriage has become an issue in the United States, and as a matter-of-fact all over the world, because at least one court -accepted scientific study has concluded that being gay is biological in nature and not just a life style choice. Republicans ignore this fact and oppose same-sex marriage as strictly a political issue. The main reason Republicans give for opposing "gay marriage" is freedom of religion and the possibility of a constitutional crisis. In Europe couples have the alternative to marriage in the form of a civil union in which couples have all of the rights of a marriage without the religious trappings. Republicans should challenge the dubious "science" of homosexuality and in the mean time propose civil unions as an alternative to same-sex marriage.

David Letterman is leaving. Is this a good thing?To answer that question one must answer another question: Is Mr. Letterman a good man? Is he a good person? Super-human? Virtuous? Continent? Incontinent? Vicious? Bestial? Commentators have studiously avoided passing judgment on Mr. Letterman's character as if it doesn't matter. But one cannot properly assess the art without also assessing the artist and for the record...he's incontinent. You're welcome.