My interests include the liberal arts, reading, sailing, skiing, economics, and gardening. There are some other interests, too. See also the third paragraph at http://strike-the-root.com/gravitys-bias-for-left-may-be-writ-in-sky#com....

I'd like to add a few remarks about a claim made by Henry D. Thoreau. He claimed that "[i]t is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right." I won't quarrel with his disdain for the law, in the sense of a government's proclamations. However, how can belief that one has a right establish that one, indeed, has such a right? Do not aggressive, malevolent do-gooders who call theirselves progressives think that they have the right to assault, to batter, and to rob a stranger and to give some of that person's wealth to others merely because they think it right?

Mr. Thoreau would have been better off to believe and to promote that the first obligation he had was to discover what is right. This obligation entails only as much authority as is necessary to discover what is right. The subtle but important change would have tended to undermine the license which a subjectivist is likely to infer from the quote handed down to us. Further, it would have worked against another common problem: craving for activity.