Mar 08 2022
Assumptions, premises, postulates, stipulations…call them what you will. There’s no getting away from them. We all have them, because we must have them. There is no system of rationality that obviates the need for a set of assumptions beneath its reasoning. Sometimes, in attempting to understand some strange aspect of reality, we leap …
Feb 16 2022
My admiration for Tucker Carlson grows daily: Carlson has nailed a key, if largely unnoticed, development: the rise of the Passive-Aggressive Tyrant. Justin Trudeau qualifies. Though a figurehead rather than an actual president, Joe Biden qualifies. Are there others in the First World? Emmanuel Macron, perhaps? I await the evaluations from European readers …
Feb 10 2022
You know, this quoting-other-novelists business is fun: “We’ve waited a long time to get something on you. You honest men are such a problem and such a headache. But we knew you’d slip sooner or later—and this is just what we wanted.” “You seem to be pleased about it.” “Don’t I have good …
Feb 09 2022
…the harder it gets to say anything much about it. Consider these two developments: Too Many People Are Speaking Freely! Away With All That Disturbing “Freedom” Stuff! The “president” and his Homeland Security thugs are appalled that millions of Americans have reached evaluations and opinions that differ from the Official Story. This must …
Feb 08 2022
If your insanity meter hasn’t pinned yet, it will after you read this: The Biden administration is set to fund the distribution of crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its plan to advance “racial equity.” The $30 million grant program, which closed applications Monday and will begin in May, will …
Jan 19 2022
I seldom regret canceling the TV service. It helps that Tucker Carlson’s show is usually available on YouTube the next day: Carlson calls it “the collapse of civilization – in real-time.” And indeed, there is no better description for it. Pace Milton Friedman, economists may not know much, but they know this: …
Jan 18 2022
We possess unfortunate inclinations, embedded in our psyches by hundreds of years of habituation, toward leaving the most important of all things to the State: Police services; Community safety; Education of the young. It isn’t just Americans who possess such inclinations. They’re uniform across the First World. As “natural” as they may seem, …
Jan 17 2022
They’re rare. The State that finds its hegemony threatened almost always responds with violence. Violence, after all, is the State’s stock in trade. It’s the characteristic method of rulers to use force and violence to work their wills upon us. In the majority of cases, they could get their way in no other …
Jan 16 2022
…they pull out their shovels and dig like giant moles on meth: It’s possible that this isn’t a first – that at some time in the past, unknown even to me, there have been presidents and Supreme Court justices unacquainted with the concept of enumerated powers, unaware of the significance of the Tenth …
Jan 14 2022
I’m in a particularly dark mood this morning. It derives from several causes, most of which my Gentle Readers would deem irrelevant to them. However, there is one that’s worth a mention. Though I disapprove of the linguistic hijacking that has conflated anarchy with chaos, I can do little about it. Worse yet, …
Jan 07 2022
Circus knife throwers go through a lot of beautiful young assistants in scanty costumes. That’s not because they “miss” all that often; obviously not, or their unique occupation would have been banned long ago. Rather; it’s because the young beauty’s fear that sooner or later the day will come eventually wears her down. She …
Jan 06 2022
It’s beyond the possibility of dispute today. Consider the following short video: Stephen Miller of America First Legal has stated the matter perfectly. But it’s not just medical care that’s at risk: Manhattan’s new DA has ordered his prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences for hordes of criminals and to downgrade …
Dec 03 2021
I’ve been having a lot of “What’s the use?” days lately. For the reasons, start with the Glenn Beck video below, add a few issues of a personal character, and stir briskly. And then, every so often someone adds an olive: Augustin Garcia, 63, was arrested thrice last week for stealing a 12-pack …
Dec 02 2021
I’ve admired Glenn Beck ever since his days on “Headline News.” After viewing the video below, I admire him even more. I’ll bet, after you’ve watched it, you’ll say he speaks for you too: Does he?
Nov 28 2021
(With observations from an assortment of Freds.) First, a helpful graphic: Next, an observation from a Fred: “A country deserves what it tolerates, and will assuredly get more of it.” – Fred Reed The point appears to have eluded about half the country. We’re being impoverished, overrun, and generally abused …
Oct 09 2021
The only way to learn just how much abuse an item will accept is to test it to destruction. Such a test should start gradually, with mild abuse, and escalate by small increments through higher and higher levels of abuse until the thing being tested is a pile of rubble. Any other approach would …
Sep 03 2021
I apologize to the ghost of Michael Crichton for appropriating the title of one of his best novels for this piece. Sorry, Mike, but it just fits our milieu too well to pass up. The theme for a Liberty’s Torch piece often comes to me in the middle of reading something from another …
Jul 07 2021
Matters are coming to a head in several ways. A collapse into complete civil chaos looms on America’s horizon, and we’re speeding toward it in a Bugatti Veyron. The evidence is available to the eyes, ears, and sometimes the noses of anyone who ever ventures out of Plato’s Cave. Even so, there are forces …
Jun 26 2021
Our favorite Bookworm has produced her best column ever. I hope she’ll permit me a lengthy excerpt: For several decades, leftism has been that ghost in the American machine. For decades, leftists were the “good guys.” While they were already haunting the Democrat party, they were still invisible. The Democrat party was able …
