Mar 05 2022
If you need a demonstration of just how little intelligence, candor, and personal integrity are required to win a high public office, just look here: I totally forgot Bernie existed. And then I saw THIS gem today: We talk about being a divided nation. In many ways, that’s true. But, in some …
Feb 27 2022
Through the first and second pieces, the news has all been bad. Now it’s time to review the other consequences of the sociocultural assault on American norms: the ones that hold out some hope for a future of freedom and decency. *** As I’ve written before, word gets around. What people need to …
Feb 24 2022
We interrupt this series of “Fraying” essays to address the question that seems to be on a majority of Americans’ minds at this time: Is Biden Out Of His BLEEP!ing Mind? Warning! Spoiler Alert! Yes. But this leads to a larger and ultimately more important subject: foreign policy and what constitutes the …
Feb 03 2022
“The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel I sometimes envision History as a teacher standing before a classroom filled with squalling teenagers. The kids are entirely uninterested in what Miss History has to say. Who cares about all that old …
Jan 31 2022
Regular Gentle Readers have noticed that I’ve been indirectly touting this novel recently. A couple have expressed curiosity about it: “If you’re going to sneak pitches for your novels into your op-eds, why that book? It’s one of your oldest.” One, whom I know more personally than most of my other readers, went even …
Dec 27 2021
First, a few quotes: You say: “There are persons who have no money,” and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from a source outside society. – Frederic Bastiat, The Law …
Dec 23 2021
Just a quick reminder, before I go offline for the Christmas weekend: Government kills. All governments, at all levels. All elements of government, whatever their nominal function. Killing is the only thing they’re good at. The events of January 6? Capitol police officers killed three protestors. All three were …
Dec 09 2021
I’ve got news for you, Gentle Reader: You are a monopoly. Surprised? It’s true, though: You are the one and only source for goods and services made by you. Because of the 13th Amendment, you have absolute control over the source of those goods and services. Assuming you’re not incarcerated for a felony …
Oct 04 2021
The U.S. gets criticized by many other nations, but when it’s the French, you just know an important threshold has been crossed: The worst part about it, of course, is that this time around, the French are right. Mark your calendars, Gentle Readers; it’s an occasion worth remembering.
Sep 23 2021
Concerning my tirade of yesterday, Mike Hendrix adds a report on an incident I should have included: After the FBI seized Joseph Ruiz’s life savings during a raid on a safe deposit box business in Beverly Hills, the unemployed chef went to court to retrieve his $57,000. A judge ordered the government to …
Sep 22 2021
“Taxation is theft!” rises the cry from thousands of freedom lovers. And it is so, if viewed through the lens of direct comparison. After all, what practical difference is there between the highwayman who points a gun at you and says “Your money or your life,” and the IRS agent who assesses you for …
Aug 08 2021
First, a few thematic quotes: No power is strong enough if it labors under the weight of fear. – Cicero Fear is an acid which is pumped into one’s atmosphere. It causes mental, moral and spiritual asphyxiation, and sometimes death; death to all energy and growth. – Horace Fletcher Fear is …
Jul 31 2021
The great goal of the knowledge-seeker is practical certainty. Note the modifier: for most propositions in this universe of discourse, absolute certainty is unattainable. That’s in the nature of causal propositions. Only in completely formal systems such as mathematics can we be absolutely certain of anything. This has critical implications for the sciences. …
Jul 03 2021
Victory Girls’ Nina Bookout has a good piece on the Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding Arizona’s new anti-fraud statute and the Democrats’ reactions: Democrats are really good at gaslighting temper tantrums. Some great ones have been taking place since SCOTUS announced their decision on the Arizona voting rights case. In a nutshell …
Jun 30 2021
Allow me to lead off with a snippet of an old essay by humorist P. J. O’Rourke: Something is happening in America, not something dangerous but something all too safe. I see it in my lifelong friends. I am a child of the “baby boom,” a generation not known for its sane or …
Jun 08 2021
Uncle Frank never let that word “citizens” pass without a tirade. “We are not a government!” he always yelled. “We are not a government! We must not think like a government! We must not think in terms of duties and receipts and disbursements. We must think in terms of the old loyalties that bound …
Jun 03 2021
You knew there was something dodgy, as our English cousins would say, about the way the government and the media heaped endless plaudits on Anthony Fauci. You knew, from the way Big Tech defended Fauci’s pronouncements from contradiction, close scrutiny, or even analytical discussion, that there were reasons to question them—and him. You knew, …
May 28 2021
Say what you will about Fox News and its steady slide to the left, it continues to provide a platform to at least one honest, courageous reporter: The evidence will be hard to gather, and probably harder still to verify and collate. However,. given the Chinese ruling class’s undisguised intentions: To rise to …
May 22 2021
The title word has a checkered history. There are any number of people who’ll tell you that “you can’t be neutral about X,” where X is something they particularly favor or disfavor. And to be fair, there are subjects on which I would view perfect neutrality – i.e. “I’m neither for it nor against …
May 14 2021
You really can’t do it any better than this, from the Babylon Bee: Nation Wishes Someone Would Have Warned Them About Dangers Of Unchecked Government Power U.S.—Concerned citizens from all over the nation were really pitying their unfortunate lot in life that not a single individual in recent memory had risen up …
