Matthew Ed Moran

I liked it. It was very honest. I will bookmark your blog.

I empathize with your concern, but I think you are boxing yourself into a conundrum unnecessarily. I think that is most exemplified in this recent statement of yours: "I suppose my concern is, as I discovered in this thread, that I may have used the cop as a form of transferring responsibility of action." I didn't read the rest of that post (read whole first page - shame on me for reading the trolling), but I don't see what there is to this idea of "transferring responsibility." Calling a cop to help is not transferring *moral* responsibility. If you are handicapped to deal with the situation, it is best of you to call someone who is better equipped. The question is a matter of efficacy, and the most moral thing to do, in my opinion, is to resolve the situation as peacefully as possible, and to comfort the child and create a lasting impression (hopefully, best case scenario). I think that is breaking it down to the fullest extent. I think giving it even the attention you have is far more than most people would offer, and you have far exceeded the moral call of duty, or at least satisfied it fully. I think the matter more worth your attention is how efficacious could you have been? What is most practical? But to feel shame, cowardice, or any self-criticism in this situation I opine is utterly unjustified.

"Let's just say there's been a lot of failure in my history. Both personally and professionally. Now I have an immense mistrust of my own decision-making faculties." No, I'm sorry. The first sentence doesn't logically entail the next sentence. You could have said with equal validity that "there has been a lot of failure in my history, therefore I now know exactly how to avoid it." You are leaving a lot out here. You are leaving out a life story. And by leaving out your life story, you are keeping anyone who reads your OP unaware that your life story may be important. In my opinion, I think this is intentional but not conscious, because it reinforces your thesis that your future can be explained by one simple statement about your past: "there is a lot of failure in my history." It invites us to think you are hopeless, because the only way for you not to fulfill your destiny would be to become someone else, with a different history, which is impossible. And you are not assigning responsibility to anyone, including yourself. There has been failure "in your history." Who failed? What was happening in your childhood? What happened when you became an adult? You're not providing any context. You've presented it as if you have no attachment to your history. No emotion to draw from it. And therefore no understanding. So instead of assigning responsibility and looking for cause and effect, you abstract. "The thing I am has made all these bad decisions, if I let it pick a career path or commit to a hobby that would just transfer this horrible current self into the future." The "thing" I "am" is going to ruin me. In my opinion, you're completely disconnected. You are not one cohesive unit which draws understanding from its parts. Instead, you have got this "thing" inside you (your decision-making faculties) which is trying to destroy you, or at least which is unpredictably self-destructive. I think if you want to make any progress, it's time to stop the abstractions and discover and engage with this "thing." I'd wager something about this thing. I'd wager it's not trying to destroy you. I'd wager it hates being ignored, however. Because it seems like you've had this thing for a long time, and now as an adult, and you don't understand it any better now than you did 10 years ago. And I think more analysis can be done on what it actually means to distrust your decision-making faculties. Since the decision-making faculties are constituted by how you chose your values, and how you chose your means; if you have self-knowledge, there can be no "mistrust" per se. You may be limited by trauma (we all are in some way), but this does not mean you can't trust yourself. It can mean the exact opposite. If your mom is a horrible bitch who abuses you, you can trust you will get very anxious or angry around her or anyone like her. Some of what trauma might cause can be what we can trust about ourselves most. So in the face of this, and in the face of your lack of context and clarity, I think you need to come back and write something more honest (of course, only in my opinion).

I think it's something to be deeply concerned about. I would like to present to you a recurring theme in your posts which you may be unaware of. More than once in your posts you mention how you are able to have "open" and "honest" discussions with her. You say your girlfriend and her father "respect" the way you think. You suggest they are not combative in response to pointed disagreement, but you mostly do not mention if these disagreements are resolved. And the one time you do explicitly mention a resolution, it seems to be one unregarding of reason and evidence. Here are some examples. You said: "She respects me and how I think (i'm a FDR listener)." What does this mean? Does her respect for the way you think mean she is mutually committed to reason and evidence as a standard for truth? In other words, does she share or desire to share the way you think? "We talk openly when we disagree" Great. But is she receptive to reason and evidence? Can you change her mind based on reason and evidence alone? "Her mother was born in Israel and is not religious in practise but very 'spiritual'… believes in god, but probably couldn't give you a working definition of what god is if you know what I mean. My girlfriend is like that too." What happens if you push back? What would happen if you were to say "that is illogical, unreasonable, and I am concerned that if I cannot persuade you now using reason and evidence, that I may not be able to in the future regarding even more important topics (perhaps deciding if our children should be exposed to your mysticism or the mysticism of your mother)" "My GF says that she believes everything I do about the material world, and she loves the way I think and never wants to try and change me or push any other belief on my…. but that she believes in an energy behind everything, and thats what she calls god. An energy in everything that gives it life." This is very concerning (to me). Look at the language. She doesn't want to try and "change" you. She doesn't want to "push" (describing disagreement as coercive) any belief on you. What does this mean? If you universalize the same standards to her, it means she also does not want to be "changed" or "pushed" into believing anything else. She is pleaing with you not subject her to reason and evidence. What does it also mean? It may mean you will never have, in her, an assertive woman who will be there to help you consider reason and evidence when you most need it, when it is most difficult for you. Because to subject you to reason and evidence when it is difficult is to "change" or "push" you. She "loves" the way you think (just like she "respected" it before). But once again missing is an indication that she shares your commitment to truth. And believing everything you believe about the material world is not compatible with believing in non-material worlds. Everything about a material world excludes the possibility of a non-material world. "Then she starts telling me that she is feeling things that she forgot she could feel, and feeling her belief in god become stronger… and even telling me that she was listening to the Rabbi talk and she was crying because it was so beautiful… yet she couldn't tell me exactly what he was saying or why it was so right or beautiful, only that she felt it was right in her body. I think they were even encouraged to kiss the ground as the land of Israel is their 'birthright'." After noting how freaked out you were about this (I think very rightly so), you say this: "When we talk she understands me" Do you see the pattern now? You're not saying she agrees with you (or that she doesn't agree but is willing to put her arguments against yours). You're saying she understands you. It's not enough for her to understand you. She needs to share your commitment to truth if you're going to have confidence in what you can expect from her in the future. Truth is predictability. Mysticism goes any way the wind blows. I had a "feeling" the my life is to follow this "path" which no longer involves you. I'm not trying to scare you or infer something she might say. But I'm giving you an example of how a life is lead according to mysticism. "my friends are great but generally say that i'm a uniquely 'analytical' one so tend to downplay it and don't provide too much analysis." Once again, now with friends, we are encountered with disagreements failing to reach resolution. Calling you "uniquely analytical" is not addressing your concerns. It is not helping you find a resolution. It's deference, and I'd be quite pissed off if this is the effort my friends provided on matters extremely important to me. "I've talked a fair bit about the Israel/Palestine conflict with her and her family quite honestly, and that is another thing I like about her and her family is that I can have conversations with substance, and I've even given them some of the philosophy stuff too and they are not offended and don't back down in any way, they just engage in a good rational discussion." The conversations have substance. They don't back down. Cool. But are they responsive to reason and evidence? You can be open with them. Great. You can disagree to the point where it would be offensive to most other people, but they keep their cool. Excellent. Truly excellent, and I'm sorry those people were not in your life in past days. But be careful not to confuse yourself. Is what you want merely people who won't attack you, or is it people who won't attack you and are responsive to reason and evidence. Being around people who will politely disagree but who are not receptive to evidence will wear thing. First it will seem refreshing. Then it will seem interesting and curious. Then it will seem insulting and erasing. I can't bear to go through the many other examples of the same type of terminology you use where you mention how people love and respect the "way you think," but are not responsive (or at least you fail to mention it if they are) to your arguments. I don't think anything I've said, even if true, should erase hope for you. But it should focus you more on how people respond to your conversations in their ACTIONS. Do they change? The entire point of being open to reason and evidence is to be open to change. Change in mind, and change in action (if one is courageous). I think going forward in this relationship or daring to think about marriage and kids before you have a conversation about this with your girlfriend is testicular suicide, but that is just my opinion based on limited information. I would also do a call-in show with Stef for further insight. Best of luck.

Shut up, it's good for the economy. Governments are most effective when they are lavishly throwing around money, because this increases aggregate demand. Increasing aggregate demand is like a mighty superhero which bashes deflationary depravity with a mjolnir hammer. If governments were stingy during times like these, we'd be poor forever and our debt burden would increase endlessly, leaving us all in a bottomless pit of debt-slave quasi-neo-serfdom.