Thought Provoking Ideas

Well, today's post deals with some interesting ideas that come from a friend of my daughter, S. She knows this young man via the world of NCFCA debating.

While I'll just point you to his blog so you can read the entire post, the ideas that intrigued me were the ones about income taxes, in particular this statment "An income tax penalizes persons for achievement."

I also liked his thoughts on welfare, "It is wrong to steal from me to donate to charity. If I forced you at gunpoint to give five bucks to a homeless man, I would be acting in an immoral and dishonorable manner. Welfare is not justified." Of course, what I'd like to see him do is talk about the reality of how to serve those in need, not those milking the system.

And lastly, his thoughts on selfishness, "It's impossible to stop being selfish, for every action, by definition, revolves around the actor. The trick is to get the actor to revolve around God."

Anyway, these thoughts were intriguing to me and amused me today. I don't remember being so intellectual as an 18-year old. I probably did share my opinions more than was needed, but I don't remember thinking about them very much. It took me a few years post-high school to develop deeper thoughts than were on the surface.

That's one of the things I've enjoyed about the NCFCA ~ teaching and learning about the skills of debate such as research, point-of-view, why it matters, what's the impact, etc.