Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Here are highlights from Stage 4 of the Abu Dhabi Tour.

Rubber Soul (1965).

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To the editor:

Robin Abcarian's Feb. 20 column, "How much more humiliation can Melania Trump take?" evokes the legendary tale of the boy who's persuaded by a snake to carry it across the river.

The snake promises not to bite the boy, but halfway across, the boy is bitten. When he cries out to the snake, "But you promised not to bite me!" the snake replies, "But you knew what I was when you picked me up."

First Lady Melania Trump must have been aware of Donald Trump's past and should have known long ago what her marriage would be like.

Sandra Newmark, Beverly Hills

Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them. Very smart people. Must be firearms adept & have annual training. Should get yearly bonus. Shootings will not happen again – a big & very inexpensive deterrent. Up to States.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2018

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Doesn't an employer coerce a man when he successfully offers him atrocious pay for a job without which he and his family would starve?

There are several similarities and symmetries between threats and offers, but there is also this crucial difference: . . . a rational individual would prefer not to be the recipient of a threat (whether or not he thinks he would comply) whereas he would generally be willing to have offers made to him and would not regret their having been made, and it is for this reason that it is inappropriate to call offers coercive. This is so even if compliance with the offer involves an unfair or exploitative exchange: exploitation and injustice are not the same thing as coercion.

(Michael Taylor, Community, Anarchy and Liberty [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982], 18 [italics in original; ellipsis added; footnote omitted])

Note from KBJ: Coercion is not exploitation; threats are not offers; liberty is not equality; liberty is not the power to achieve one's ends but rather the absence of constraint. Conflating concepts is a common tactic of the Left, going back at least to Karl Marx. If you can't persuade rationally, engage in obfuscation and persuasive definition.

Fool for the City (1975). This album got a lot of radio airplay during my senior year of high school. My friends and I loved it, and I still do.

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