@JAndrewLauer@jameszimmermann Not true. If, e.g., the court denies a dispositive motion, that decision can be reported & then it's a precedent in that court. If defendant takes an interlocutory appeal & the denial is affirmed, then you have binding precedent, even if the case settles after that. Happens a lot
I just left the ARC conference, where so many speakers lamented the decline of the West and attributed it to spiritual causes. I agree the West has a spiritual malady. It's called ingratitude. It's feeling entitled to the miracle all around us and thus miserable and empty.
"Is this all there is?" he texts from a lie-flat seat in the front on a 787 taking him across the world in a few hours. The message gets there fast because the plane is in near-constant contact with satellites that provide high-speed Internet literally anywhere and that you can't even outrun at 0.90 Mach.
We complain about spiritual decline while absolutely nothing prevents us from pursuing whatever spiritual path we want, or inviting people to come participate in one with us. There are zero impediments except our own willingness to see that we're in a living miracle and our own ingratitude.
Not one of the overwhelming majority of us will ever face actual food insecurity. We've never wondered if we'll need to boil our shoes to feed our children. We blame a world that gives us everything instead of realizing we're so entitled we won't even look for depth. We don't even have to get off the couch to find it, though maybe we should. It's in our phones if we'd just look.
I agree that there are elements of decline in the West, and that perhaps there are spiritual causes, but I think those start with each of us being unwilling to accept and be grateful for our inheritance and our incredible bounty.
I disagree that with the diagnosis, though, ultimately. We're doing amazing things people refuse to recognize, and we've been attacked by Western Marxist darkness until we've learned only to be critical about everything we have. We're not declining. We're being poisoned, and in our cushy ingratitude, we can refuse the tainted cup.