Talking It Out

This post originally appeared on StrangePegs on Sept. 12, 2016. Facebook has a lot of things going on that we don't know about. It's not that facebook is actually trying to hide this stuff, it's just that it's not right out in the open, and, well, no one ever really looks. Of course, we all agree to it by being on facebook to begin with, so it's not like you have any right or grounds on which to complain. If you don't like it, don't be on facebook. But I digress as all of that is really beside the point. Or behind it. Or something. I only bring it up because what I'm about to talk about came out of one of those "hidden" facebook things. Unsurprisingly, facebook labels you in different ways based on the kinds of things on which you click through and all sorts of ways. A lot of it has to do with advertising so that their advertisers can target you so that they're sending ads to people who might actually be interested in them rather tha...

This is a shared post from StrangePegs . Let me make one thing very clear here before I get started: The Declaration of Independence  is not a legal document, not like the Constitution. There is nothing in it that establishes law or structures or anything of the sort. Nevertheless, we hold it as a foundational document, especially that part about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." So let's look at that for a moment: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Yes, I'm skipping over the equality part this time (sort of) because I talk a lot about equality. Not that I'm skipping it, I'm just allowing it to be understood that  all  (adult) humans have the equal unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Also, there is nothing in this that is a pro-life stat...