The Peripatetic Philosopher is to conduct an experiment:

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

The madness of the times is consuming me at the moment, and it involves not only the "End of the American Century,"  which I have suggested happened in 1968 when I was in South Africa, but the "End of Democracy" here in the United States of Anxiety in the 21st century.

The United States has become a place where a man loses his career for what he says to women, and forks over $13 million and doesn't touch a one of them; where a National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball magnet loses his NBA $1 billion franchise when his girlfriend -- 30 years junior to him -- records his racial bias towards his athletes; where a female conservative muckraking writer cancels a college speech to prevent a riot and an honored academic is shouted off the stage attempting to give his speech because he holds ideas counter to the liberal masses; where Major League Baseball (MLB) players who happened to be black are suddenly acutely sensitive to fans who shout the "N" word at them; and when such fans do so shout, they are escorted from the ball park, and may be permanently banned from attending games, and the list goes on.  

What happened to: "Stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!"

It is not only that you no longer have a right to state your mind, sick as it may be, you must state it with the same sickness that is culturally acceptable to college professors and students. 

Five hundred years ago, the university was created as the citadel not only of learning what was already known, but the only safe place to exchange controversial ideas. That is now all gone.

We worry about a nuclear holocaust with the madness of the dictator in North Korea.  We don't need him to destroy civilization.  We've created our own brand of madness, so we're doing a good enough job ourselves destroying ourselves and our freedoms without any help from him or anyone else.

JRF

PS My essays are going to show "JRF" as the authorship.  Stay tuned if you like.

PSS I have two others in the cooker which may take precedence.  We shall see.  The only way you'll know, if interested, is to check amazon's Kindle Library under JRF.  Incidentally, this is an experiment.  It is not written in concrete.