Normally, the term rent-seeking applies to an attempt to profit without producing anything or offering a valued service. While the use of the term can be tendentious, when a nominally private enterprise rides the coat-tail of some governmental entity, thus compelling others to use its services willy-nilly, the evil is plainly recognizable. To make …
Category: power
Oct 04 2023
Tamed
Sundance at The Last Refuge lays it out straight for us: In 2009 72% of the country, and an even larger percentage of the Republican voters, did not want Obamacare. The govt takeover of healthcare was along purely ideological grounds. For the 2010 midterm election, the professional Republican apparatus campaigned on this single …
Sep 15 2023
Bootlickers Disguise Bootlicking as Shoe Shining
Most folks have probably encountered a situation like this. You’re arguing on social media with some Lefty, and he copies and pastes some links he dug up on Google as evidence his point of view is right, and you’re just an idiot who hates fact-based rational thought. After all, how can you ignore the opinion …
Sep 12 2023
Why Now?
Robert Royal’s column of today, “Psychopaths In Power,” makes several useful observations: The great psychologist and social commentator Jordan Peterson recently found exactly the right few words for our predicament: Psychopaths are in power. Others have said as much. He added, however, that the psychopaths have been utterly brilliant in using terms like …
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 31 2023
Symptoms Of The Disease
Man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d, glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, as make the angels weep. – Shakespeare, Measure for Measure Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it. …