Abortion is NOT the Holocaust (and I’m Pro-Life)

| alizabethworley

Abortion is NOT the Holocaust (and I’m Pro-Life)

This election—and any election year—always carries a heavy, tense question among pro-lifers. The question is, can you ethically vote for a candidate you otherwise like if they are pro-choice? To those who are already pro-choice, such a question sounds narrow minded, but if you actually believe that a fetus has life and “is a person, no matter how small”, then it’s a valid question. After all, hopefully none of us, conservatives or liberals, would vote for any candidate who promoted killing the elderly, disabled, or a minority race. But when people compare abortions to the holocaust, they are warping the actual situation, and even hurting the pro-life movement.

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Courteous Conversations: Talking across political lines

| joshsabey

the brothers sabey logo with headphones

Brian is a soft-spoken man who invites us into his living room while he retreats into a back room to finish putting the children to sleep. His wife is out playing volleyball with friends. Brian has blonde hair, blue eyes, and holds moderately conservative views.

I mention his political silhouette because that is the reason we have come. Our goal is to find people who disagree over potentially polarizing issues, and find a way to have them talk together and, more remarkably, listen. Continue reading →

How to have Courteous Conversations about Polarizing Issues

| joshsabey
Video trailer for Courteous Conversations

At the beginning of the summer, David and I set out to find a way to help people who disagree over polarizing issues—even passionately, and often angrily—talk productively together. Fed up with the antagonistic political discourse so prevalent (and aggravated by the current presidential campaign), we wanted to create a situation where people would actually listen to the other side. (For a glimpse into why this kind of conversation is so important, check out this YouTube about political discrimination.) To do this, we had to remove incentives to argue, create a situation where participants felt safe, and take away platforms for rebuttal.

Here’s what we did: Continue reading →

By the Sweat of Thy Brow

| sarahbarrows

PC:http://courtneyriouxcoaching.com/hard-work/

It had been a month now. An entire month of 60- to 70-hour work weeks, coming in on weekends, and I knew that until this project was finished, it would continue like this. Being fairly new in my career I felt I had to put in the hours to do my part, and so, after another long work day, my feet aching, I drove up to our apartment in the dusk, the following phrase ringing in my mind:

“By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread, all the days of thy life.”

According to Genesis, these are the words God says to Adam and Eve, and to us as their collective children as He drives them out of the blissful Garden of Eden.

Even in a digital age, when automated machinery does a lion’s share of the ‘sweating,’ here we still are working long work hours at jobs that we don’t necessarily see as our lives (why else would we call it ‘work/life’ balance?). But how do we truly find a balance between the necessity of work and the necessity of giving to our family and friends? How do we remain diligent at work when our nine-to-five job is an odd formula that doesn’t always fit the needs of home? Continue reading →

Against Chronological Snobbery: The Lightweight Modern Values of Equality, Tolerance, and Diversity

| briansabey
Question the Answers by walknboston, on Flickr
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkn/3526522573/

In my last “Against Chronological Snobbery” essay I introduced the debate between the “progressive” view of American history (that America’s history has been one of clear moral progress) and the “non-progressive” view (that it hasn’t—i.e., that the question is at least subject to debate). I endorsed the latter position. Representing the “progressive view” was Justice Kennedy’s Obergefell opinion, together with Justice Marshall’s assertion that the founders lacked any remarkable degree of wisdom, and that the greatness of the Constitution is its more recent embrace of equality and individual rights. Representing the “non-progressive” view was Justice Robert’s dissent in Obergefell and Justice Scalia’s dissent in U.S. v. Virginia, both of which included a scathing rebuke of the majorities’ chronological snobbery.

In this essay, I hope to continue my attack on the “progressive” view by assaulting one of its citadels—the self-satisfaction of contemporary mainstream culture with regard to its own value system.

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In Praise of Fatherhood

| briansabey

Today I honor the beauty and grace of fatherhood. I am recently graduated from law school, and getting ready to start a job at my dad’s firm in August. Dia and I have very little money. Yet we have just made a down payment on our first house. I am studying for the bar exam in July and occasionally relieving Dia from the sole care of two girls under the age of two. We have very little time. Yet we have just returned from a ten-day Hawaii vacation.

The house was a little miracle. Continue reading →