Alec's reading log

"If half of us believe the earth is flat, we do not make peace by settling on it being halfway between round and flat. Those of us who know it’s round will not recruit them through compromise. We all know that you do better bringing people out of delusion by being kind and inviting than by mocking them, but that’s inviting them to come over, which is not the same thing as heading in their direction. … [P]art of the problem is that we have an appeasement economy, a system that is supposed to be greased by being nice to the other side. Appeasement didn’t work in the 1930s and it won’t work now. That doesn’t mean that people have to be angry or hate back or hostile, but it does mean they have to stand on principle and defend what’s under attack. There are situations in which there is no common ground worth standing on, let alone hiking over to."

"Did you know that George Washington had only one tooth in his mouth when he became president in 1789, thanks to bad health and 18th-century dentistry? But his false teeth were not made of wood, as is often described in folk songs and lore. His dentures were made from the pulled teeth of slaves."