Seen on a comment to this blog post:

“Pray to God, but swim to shore.”

Now, I'm pretty a-religionist (as opposed to agnostic or atheist), but it seems to me that we would be better off if everyone concentrated on the "swim to shore" part and less on the "Pray to God" (or "Beg to the Gov'ment") or just generally expecting something or somebody else to swoop in and save you from your own bad fortune, incompetence, and stupidity.

And make no mistake, we all--every one of us--take turns with bad luck, with incompetence, with doing stupid things. It's called "being human." It hasn't changed in the 5,000 years of recorded human history, and there is no reason (contra Marx and Obama) that it will change any time soon.

Deal with the world--and with people--as they actually are, not how you wish them to be.

Politics is too important to be left to the politicians.

(Or, "politics are too important to be left to the politicians," if you consider "politics" to be a plural.) You can find both on the Intertubes. Both are equally true.

From Inside Higher Ed, something that needs to be said and repeated again and again:

Anger and indignation are aggressive defenses; they suggest the angry person cannot support his or her position with evidence or carefully reasoned argument; it is an unambiguous red flag. Anger, indignation and character attacks are used to enforce adherence to “sacred values” and for that reason they have no place in a community of scholars.

We are very gifted in the art of analyzing the behavior and motivations of other groups and institutions. Furthermore, we are intensely trained in the tools used to conduct complex inquiry; yet, we rarely bring those tools to bear on our own activities.

And not just in the context of academe, either . . . although after a while, anger at someone who simply refuses to comprehend what you're saying in the first place becomes a natural human reaction. That's where many on the intelligent right are today with the "progressives." They simply don't seem to understand--and don't seem to want to understand--what we keep trying to tell them about how the world really works, vs. how they want the world to work. This gets really, really frustrating after a while.

Never trust a revolution led by students, professors, government employees, or labor "leaders".

View with suspicious optimism a revolution led by housewives, shopkeepers, shipbuilders, or mine workers.

"Don't blame you, don't blame me, blame that guy behind the tree." - unknown

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.

If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.

Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress.

They are reactionary.

Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary founders.

-- Calvin Coolidge, 1926 (As quoted on page 18-19 of America by Heart by Sarah Palin)
(Re-formatting to a more bloggish format is mine)

Here's another phrasing of my basic philosophy:

Don't make life harder than it already is for people, and maybe just maybe do something to make it easier for people every once in a while.

-Me, in an e-mail conversation earlier this week with a friend.

Things that can't go on forever, won't.

Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds

Is it your responsibility to pay for the irresponsibility of someone else?

"The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now" ~ South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905).