Comments about ‘Linda & Richard Eyre: Being a bit of a contrarian is a good thing’

I wholeheartedly agree that taking a contrary position will often yield better results. "Think outside the box". However, doing so can be disruptive. For example, I took a contrarian position on being a member of the LDS church, and 25 years later, it was the right choice for me, but it is contrary to the predominant thinking among my LDS friends and family.

A couple of your viewpoints are at least partially incompatible:

1) Supporting large businesses who value families, and 2) Taking an "abundance" mentality in not protecting American companies.

My experience is that in the fiercest economic battles, families and family time is a remote consideration. For example, the good people who worked for Novell and WordPerfect who were also good citizens, parents, scoutmasters, etc, were decimated by a much-harder working culture at Microsoft, which carefully hired single people it knew had more free time to dedicate to working longer hours.

It may be a smarter long term investment for companies to support family values, limiting the time commitment of parents in their work endeavors, but this presupposes that the companies will be successful against energetic competitors who may not share the same values.

Re; We like the noun form of the word — "contrarian" — because it seems to describe someone who thinks for himself and who is not swayed by trends or popularity or styles or the direction of the crowd.

This is very true in Utah. When I became a Christian and left the Mormon Church.
But in your hearts revere Christ [not,JS].

Again, the Eyre's bring balance and fresh thinking to old problems. I would like to thank the Eyre family for their divergent and "contrary" thinking on so many subjects. I have followed them through the years (don't know them at all personally), and they have really added a lot of new thinking and ideas to my life and many others. I am constantly amazed at the new perspectives they come up with and the humble way they present their information. Thank you!

Your comment about who should vote leads me to wonder whether only those who pay taxes should do so. They would get one vote for every dollar of taxes they pay. How about that idea for a way to encourage "earning" rather than "receiving from the government"?

Amen to Utexmom! I always enjoy and appreciate the Eyres' columns. I think I may be somewhat of a contrarian myself! So that's what it's called when I go against the trends of the day.