In this TEDx presentation, documentarian Cassie Jay explains how she overcame her bigotry to consider a point of view she thought was … evil. And how she changed her mind, altering her ideological viewpoint.
In an age where the ideological lines are hardening, proof that people can open themselves up to reason and evidence and human testimony — that has to be interesting, no?
Political correctness will die as it lived — kicking and screaming ad hominem abuse as a substitute for arguments.
On October 28, 1886, in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland, despite the fact that the monument was not a federally funded project.
The member [of Congress] who is not making a career of politics looks quite differently at the world.
Bob Novak, as quoted in Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders, by Tom Coburn (2003).
On October 27, 1964, Ronald Reagan delivered a speech on behalf of Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater, thereby launching Reagan’s political career. The speech came to be known as “A Time for Choosing.”
I do not develop man, nor as man, but, as I, I develop — myself.
On October 26, 1774, the first Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Exactly one year later, King George III of Great Britain went before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion. And one year later yet, to the day, in 1776, septuagenerian Benjamin Franklin departed from America for France, seeking financial support for the American Revolution.
Herbert Spencer, “The New Toryism,” The Man Versus the State (1884).
If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves?
On October 25, 1806, the German philosopher Max Stirner was born. Stirner was known for his radical individualism, which under the name of “egoism” became culturally chic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, a major work that was famously attacked by Karl Marx, he translated Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and J.-B. Say’s A Treatise on Political Economy into German.
Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man’s lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one’s self.