There doesn't seem to be someone more of a light for the moths than Elon Musk these days. Whether liberal or conservative, opinions range widely and all seem to coalesce on what people think his politics might be. From progressive darling for heading a reasonable environmentalist movement to becoming the most feared billionaire on the face of the earth because he wanted to purchase Twitter; he's been at the center of their focus for some time. Conservatives have also suffered from whiplash in their emotions about Elon Musk. In 2010, Musk received a $465 million in federal loans to help support Tesla, a company many conservatives felt was flailing and taking advantage of green energy subsidies. Some reports cite as much as $4.9billion in government subsidies in total. The whole… read more

In the Garden Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” -Genesis 2:15-17 Many people have the impression that God is an authoritarian. They are told about the ten commandments and the many additional rules added by humans not by God that seek to promote levels of obedience and holiness. Human rules about alcohol, dancing, certain types of music, certain types of food are associated with God even though they didn’t come from Him. God is love. God loves liberty. Liberty is love. The truth is that God is not an… read more

The latest tragedy has become the focus of the 24/7 news cycle, and it will be until the next major issue wipes it off the map. Politicians once again are grandstanding about their tried-and-true solution that, if implemented, would have prevented the entire catastrophe. The past couple of days, the latest school shooting in Texas has left families mourning and crying out. It shook an entire nation (once again) and left people casting their eyes to the ground in sadness. It's also encouraged the cadre of politicians eager for a poll hit or who have an exaggerated sense of authority to offer up their solution that should be oh so obvious to the general public...if only the other side would accept their wicked responsibility for the shooting. In fact, we at Self-Evident weren't… read more

Can we talk about consent for a few minutes? The #MeToo movement has truly brought the idea of consent to the foreground of public discourse in the recent past. Lunatic activists and opportunists aside, millions of American women have a legitimate grievance that men are not respecting their “no”. Millions of men are violating the consent of women, applying force and coercion to overcome the resistance of women. The only right and proper rule is that men should NEVER touch a woman without out absolute and unequivocal consent from each woman they meet. This applies to women we are married to, in a relationship with, women we are only acquainted with and women that we don’t even know. This means that a woman who is intoxicated cannot give consent. If she cannot drive, she… read more

Excellence is now a word that turns many people off. We imagine the over-striving classmate sitting next to us, frantically redoing her entire paper before it's due because she misspelled a word and fears it's not perfect. We picture the student who gets upset with the 98% he just received, despite the rest of the class scoring 70% and below. The idea of excellence has been shunned, and replaced with the more palatable sense of "satisfactory." You've witnessed the pushback against standards, and it reeks of something more dangerous than we admit. By not upholding high standards, we give ourselves an easy excuse to take it easy and do just enough to get by. In fact, the idea of standards has become racist, sexist, homophobic, and whatever slam you want to lay on it. We've lowered… read more