First, a brief excursion into stupidity from a nominally intelligent person: Don’t get me wrong: vigilantism in any form is wrong… Show me the difference – moral or practical – between vigilantism and the State’s version of “justice.” What palm of morality goes with a badge or an office in a “public” …
Category: education
Feb 23 2024
Public Schooling: The Grand Delusion
“The child is not the mere creature of the state.” — Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 1922 One of the more persistent debates in pro-freedom circles is whether children have the same rights as adults. In practice, they don’t: their parents can compel and restrain them against their wills, at least before they …
Feb 17 2024
If You’re Still In Any Doubt
All reason for doubt has been erased: they want your children to be ignorant and bigoted: A parent has shared a distrubing worksheet provided to students in a Seattle Public School high school English class as part of Black Lives Matter at School Week with KTTH radio host Jason Rantz. Rantz reports …
Feb 09 2024
Burn it to the ground
At this point, putting your kids in public school will only have negative consequences. In short, there are 53 schools in Illinois where none of the kids, ZERO PERCENT, can do math at grade level. Those of you who remember me from my previous blog might recall my hatred of the publik skool sistim. At …
Jan 22 2024
The University Cesspool
Via Maura Dowling comes this set of horrors being perpetrated upon first-year students at the University of Wisconsin Law School: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) is alerting the public to a mandatory “Re-Orientation” session happening tomorrow, Friday, January 19th, for all first-year law students at the University of Wisconsin Law …
Dec 21 2023
The Neglected Front (UPDATED)
Leftists play a “long game.” To them, no setback is permanent. They keep the pressure up until they get what they want. After that, they defend their gains with unbridled viciousness and pseudo-conservative sentiments such as “it’s here to stay.” Thomas Sowell has delineated their practices in several of his books. The longest …
Dec 14 2023
The death of Academia
The fate of “higher” education in this country has been written about for decades now, although the kerfluffle regarding the Ivy-league sociopaths have drug it back into the spotlight recently. There’s nothing like defending genocidal calls on campus to make people wonder just why they should send their children to your institution. And now the …
Dec 14 2023
Dead Or Just Resting?
(Yes, that’s a reference to Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch. For those unfamiliar with it, you can view it here, or read the script here.) Way back in my tenderer years, a few people were concerned about the direction in which I appeared to be headed. Sometimes I took them seriously…but as it …
Nov 29 2023
Unions And Their Objectives
The following fragments of conversations with union members are taken from Robert C. Townsend’s classic Further Up The Organization: Production Worker: “In a big union shop, management is the enemy – is something to overcome, or somehow get around. That’s the game everybody plays.” Machinist: “The minute you put on a blue …
Nov 08 2023
A Brilliant Insight
Sep 29 2023
Beware “The Procedure”
It looks like a harmless word. At one time it was. It merely denoted a way of doing something, like the equally dreaded word process. And to be fair, there are times when it doesn’t stiffen my neck hair or move my hand to my sidearm. But that’s not what I have in mind …
Sep 28 2023
Hard On The Brakes Won’t Do It
Before I begin this screed, I’d like to express a thought that has often risen to mind but has seldom made its way through my fingers and into the sacred pixels of Liberty’s Torch: Thank You, Gentle Readers. Whoever and wherever you are, including those of you who read my crap to laugh …
Sep 15 2023
Bastiat Redux
In his last and best-known book The Law, Frederic Bastiat provides us with a striking description of the essence of State lawlessness: But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom …
Aug 31 2023
Actualizing Their Fear
In the usual case, making them fear us takes a show of defiance and a demonstration that you mean to stand your ground. Bureaucrats hate that; it means they’ll be forced to deal with you…and they cannot know in advance what kind of forces you command. The power of stubborn defiance has recently been …
Aug 19 2023
Right, Wrong, Or Socially Unjust?
In analyzing the phrase “social justice,” we see how prefixing the word justice with any modifier inverts its meaning. It turns something easily understood – inherently unambiguous, in fact – into something for noisy groups to argue and negotiate. But then, attempts to redefine “justice” to accommodate some trendy Cause are as old as …
Jul 30 2023
If I could do one thing to improve America’s long term prospects
I would destroy the publik skool sistim. And quite frankly, I’d take out a lot of the “higher” education system as well. At this point, when someone brags about their degree in my presence, I automatically assume that I’m dealing with a brainwashed drone who knows nothing about anything. When it comes to education in …
Jul 18 2023
I Want A New Lens
I want – possibly need – a lens designed and constructed for analysts to use in looking at the news. It would be utterly distinct from conventional lenses, for it would invert the usual idea of “focus.” It would blur nearby objects and events while it clarifies objects and events in the distance. That …
Jun 25 2023
An Early-Sunday-Morning Thought
A huge portion of the popular reaction against “public” schools arises from clashes over values: i.e., moral and ethical principles for living that undergird all other decisions. All education of any kind must be founded upon some set of values, because literally everything involved in human life is founded thus. It’s literally impossible to …
Jun 21 2023
They Will Not Let Us Be
Every day brings fresh proof: Violence broke out again in Glendale, CA, after Antifa showed up to a school board meeting at which parents were protesting the school’s promotion of “pride month” and gender ideology. Videos showed police on the scene in riot gear as well as temporary barriers being set up. …
Jun 15 2023
When They Realize They’ve Overplayed Their Hand
…they immediately try to squelch conversation about it – “they” being the anti-American Left, of course. One aspect of that is the denigration of any group that coalesces around the salient they’ve misguidedly created. Such a group is in the news today: To its members, it’s a grassroots army of “joyful warriors” who …