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The Library

This is a collection of essays, short stories, and other pieces I’ve written over the years. Some I wrote for class and some I wrote because I need a social life. The topics mostly focus on civil liberties, philosophy, and politics.

I do most of my computer work on an old 486 with a 350 meg. hard drive (my Tandy 286 has a 40 meg and I remember when that was impressive). Every few months I run out of disk space and spend a few hours going through the directories. I end up reading old papers from college and high school and reminding myself that I was a real smart-ass.

These are some of my favorites.

I wrote this for an English class. I discuss Social Contract theory, the development of mass morality, and crime. Then I apply the Social Contract to Alex, the protagonist of A Clockwork Orange.

This is another discussion of the Social Contract and crime. I deal with capital punishment from a Social Contract perspective.

I actually wrote this paper as a favor to a classmate back in my high school daze. It is about German philosopher Frederick Nietchee(sp) and the role his work played in the rise of Nazi Germany.

This is a short essay about one of Socrates’ paradigms: "Are acts pious because the gods love them or do the gods love these acts because they are pious?"

I also argue that philosophy developed in a polytheistic society is difficult or impossible to correctly apply to philosophy in a monotheistic society.

This essays focuses on the relationship between technology and individual freedom. I argue that the evolution of monitoring and tracking technology inevitably attacks the rights of individuals. While technology can be a constructive tool for crime fighting, the US government has a very clear track record of trampling the rights of innocent citizens.

Again from the viewpoint of the Social Contract, I try to define the nature of law in a democratic society and the consequences of hi-tech crime fighting.

STER2.doc

This piece addresses the public misconceptions about terrorism in the United States and the American tendency to destroy personal freedom while on a witch hunt: communists, witches, civil rights activists...

HeShe.doc

This a He said, She said look at the double standards concerning politically correct speech.

Again the issue is double standards; this time the focus is on society’s effort to condemn athletes and musicians as poor role models while engaging in war, theft, deceit, and other unethical behaviors.

SDAF.doc (work in progress)

The Founding Fathers believed that violence was sometimes a viable solution to problems like repression and tyranny. Why are so many people duping themselves into believing that the US government could never become oppressive.

Misc: History, Fiction

Lincoln is almost a god in American history texts. His face sells cars, eye glasses, and life insurance. He’s on the penny and the five dollar bill. He is given credit for ending slavery, saving the Union and inventing space travel.

But why did John Wilkes Booth shoot him? He arrested members of Congress, shut down newspapers and refused to believe that free people should govern themselves.

Leon Uris is one of America’s greatest writers. His two main subject matters are Ireland and the Jews. Exodus is the story of desperate Jewish refugees trying to reach Israel(when it was still British controlled and called Palestine). After being liberated from German concentration camps, they are placed in ‘detention’ camps by the US and Great Britain. Very few people are aware that many Jewish refugees were placed in camps only marginally better than the German camps.

This book tells of six hundred Jews breaking out of a British camp on Cyprus and making their way to Palestine.

I wrote this for an English class; it’s a comparison between the book and the movie which was based on it. This is clearly one of the top fifty books in American literature.

Sagan2.doc

This is a simply essay written in a writing class about Carl Sagan.

This is a story I wrote for a creative writing class then revamped on my own. I have two versions here.

Frank4.doc

This is a short story about medical ethics. It’s an application of Frankenstein to a modern dilemma. It’s a left over from a Literature class.

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