Though I appreciate responses to the blog, I don’t usually post them.  Here, though, are just a few especially intriguing ones to “Sympathy for Stanford.”  The first:

Hilaire Belloc’s occasional dourness conceals an underlying cheerfulness – for he believed in the chastening grace of God.  This is from his reflection “On New Years and New Moons”:

Some political theorists think we own ourselves.  The idea is especially prominent among libertarians, who often claim to find it in John Locke, the English social contract thinker who so powerfully influenced the American founders.  Just for these reasons, some readers might be interested in the following after-the-bell conversation.

I enjoy a magic show as much as anyone, but in real life, I dislike illusions.  I want to know things as they are.

We often feel bad about doing wrong.  That’s good; we should.  However, the association of feelings with conscience tempts us to a big mistake:  We fool ourselves into thinking that conscience nothing but a feeling, rather than an announcement -- “I feel bad” rather than “This is not to be done.”