This got my attention a couple of days ago: Former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat, has said that his party needs to “rebrand” in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s big win. […] “What does it mean to be a Democrat?” Ryan asked. “People want to trust us. They don’t want to …
Category: rights
Sep 25 2024
Cleverness In Support Of Evil
Now and then, the morons of the world will latch onto a clever phrase and put it to use: “I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,” Harris said in an interview that aired Tuesday morning. “And get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually …
Sep 10 2024
Why We Must Remember
Much of the propaganda and deceit that’s purveyed today, particularly by “our” political class and their boughten allies in the media, can be defeated by cultivating a retentive memory. In that regard, the Internet’s “memory” is a great aid, for the Internet remembers everything: right, wrong, or indifferent. I have a cassette tape …
Aug 25 2024
Maintain The Tension!
There are a lot of people out there hawking ways to reduce the stress in our lives. “Are you stressed? Are you tense?” the self-help gurus ask in unctuous tones. (Or in unctuous font, when their pitch comes in a printed form.) The relief they offer has immense appeal… though in practice it’s seldom …
Aug 21 2024
The End Of The Totalitarian Road
Power is a drug that doesn’t sate. – Me. It’s frustrating, having to make the same point over and over. Still, needs must. When Clarence Carson wrote: [W]e are told that there is no need to fear the concentration of power in government so long as that power is checked by …
Jun 21 2024
Even Conservatives Move Goalposts
Sometimes, we even forget to bring them onto the playing field. FAIR WARNING: One subject of this piece will be currently illegal drugs and the proper legal attitude toward them. It’s probably the most contentious subject roiling the Right. Tempers often flare over it. Many in the Right, daunted by its seeming complexity, …
Feb 21 2024
Killers Part 3
When force is made the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. – Ayn Rand If you’ve read the previous two pieces in this little series, you’ve probably got the idea that I don’t much like governments. You’re right about that. The State, the human organization defined by its monopoly privilege of using …
Feb 20 2024
Killers Part 2
An ancient principle of the law holds that he who aids or abets the commission or the concealment of a crime is as guilty of that crime as the perpetrator of the criminal act. Clearly, the abettor must condone the crime. Equally clearly, the abettor and the perpetrator share certain convictions, whether about the …
Feb 19 2024
Killers Part 1
The civility cherished by the civilized men had finally been defeated by their ideas, although they did not know that this was the cause. After years of preaching contradictions and of evading principles with an anti-ideological shrug, these men were astonished to see the nation conclude that man cannot live by principles, that reason …
Feb 18 2024
Apply The Logical-Ethical Cement
Pascal passed the following video along to me for my contemplation: Jordan Peterson has become a hugely important voice in the ideological war. There’s no question of his significance, nor of his reach. Why else would the Left be working so hard to destroy him? In the video above, he emphasizes responsibility as …
Jan 14 2024
Blue States’ Assaults On The Second Amendment Continue
We already know about New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois’ Governor J. B. Pritzker, and New Mexico’s Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and their machinations against the right to keep and bear arms. But now Democrats in the state of Washington have gotten into the act: According to Jason Rantz …
Dec 21 2023
Discomfort On Display
I don’t know how to embed one of these YouTube “shorts,” but this one is worth your time. It’s a fine example of the kind of squirming that anti-Second Amendment activists will do to avoid a straightforward question. They cannot abide having their intentions displayed plainly. They will not answer a question with a …
Sep 20 2023
A Matter Of Units And Standards
When it comes to individuals’ Constitutionally guaranteed rights, the lines are sharp and clear. The understanding of a right would not be possible otherwise, for a right divides the universe of actions into permissible and impermissible. Thus, it’s always possible to know when an individual’s right to his life, his liberty, or his honestly …
Sep 11 2023
Sovereign Immunity
[The following piece first appeared at Liberty’s Torch V1.0 on June 14, 2016. And before you ask: No, I haven’t been to the kzinti homeworld since then. – FWP] Some years ago, a friend of mine who sought to pursue an action against his township for mistakenly demolishing his house was told, in …
Sep 10 2023
Where The Power Is
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. – William Pitt Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act. – The Talmud One of the most illuminating bits of the Game of Thrones series …
Sep 03 2023
The Drones Of Labor Day: An Unpacking
This tidbit should be inspiring more questions than it is at present: The New York Police Department will dispatch drones to monitor backyard parties and private social gatherings over Labor Day weekend in response to any complaints. However, some are saying that drone surveillance by police would be an invasion of privacy. …
Jul 04 2023
On Non-Payment Of Premiums
Have a few quotes from the greatest of all Americans, the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson: “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.” “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a …
Jun 06 2023
The Imperative Question
Toward the end of Atlas Shrugged, Hank Rearden has a final meeting with the “looter elite” in which they propose a “Steel Unification Plan.” That “plan” is plainly just as vampiric as every other that emerged from the looter-ruled economy described in the novel. Yet the elite are solidly behind it…which causes Rearden to …
May 04 2023
The Plunderers Hunger Part 2: The Coin Of The Realm
Let’s start the day off with a little Ayn Rand: “Well, anyway, it was decided that nobody had the right to judge his own need or ability. We voted on it. Yes, ma’am, we voted on it in a public meeting twice a year. How else could it be done? Do you care …
Apr 19 2023
Wrong Turnings
Please don’t misinterpret what follows. I love my Church, despite my handful of disagreements with it. But now and then some of its notables go off the rails so dramatically that I’m compelled to take exception to it. The United States has a shortage of Catholic priests. Parishes from coast to coast find …
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