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Latest Articles: Opinions/Editorials
The Thin Line Between Tribalism and Human Flourishing
Post Date: 2023-02-22 20:18:15 by Charles_Byrd
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Walter Grinder, a grand champion of liberty, passed last December. While not well-published, Walter was a scholar of the literature of liberty and a leader at the Institute for Humane Studies. He was dedicated to removing barriers to human flourishing by imparting the ideals of liberty. John Hagel III, Walter’s long-time friend and collaborator, explained, “Walter was consumed by the desire to share his reading and thoughts with his network of libertarian associates and protégés in more personal ways, so that they could see more clearly how it connected with their specific work and interests.” Walter shared insights from his scholarship in the form of emails ...
Attack of The Killer Balloons from Outer Space
Post Date: 2023-02-21 02:41:23 by Charles_Byrd
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Out of nowhere a wave of allegedly Chinese spy balloons are flying over America. Of course, it is important to care. Pay no attention to the genocide behind the curtain, let alone the nuclear war on the horizon, or a train derailment releasing chemical toxins in Ohio. Actor Tom Green listed two of these three serious issues in a recent video clip. Although he did add the Epstein island list to the mix. In a recent White House press conference, press secretary Karine Jean- Pierre said, “I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there is no—again, no—indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns.” Click for Full Text!
Abortion has failed to deliver on its promises. Poverty still exists. Children are still abused. Women are still mistreated
Post Date: 2023-02-16 17:02:40 by Charles_Byrd
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The world is flat. People are property. Tobacco is harmless. Like many other long-held but misguided beliefs, over time these ideas were proven wrong. Consequently, people and societies function differently, in light of what we’ve come to know to be true. Click for Full Text!
The walls that can come down when the negative stereotype of pro-lifers meets the reality of a kind and generous people
Post Date: 2023-02-14 19:28:56 by Charles_Byrd
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One weakness common to most scribes is that we are prone to over-interpret every “sign.” On that score (as you will see momentarily), I plead guilty. For starters—don’t ask me how I knew– as we boarded the plane I just knew something special was in the air. Click for Full Text!
'Science' as insanity?
Post Date: 2023-02-12 20:45:54 by Charles_Byrd
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The notion that "what works" to cure disease, build sewer systems, raise animals, etc., is "empirical science" has typified the West for hundreds of years. Likewise, the notion that "what is good for humans is the primary duty of medicine" resulted from the Christian doctrine that caused humanity to "reproduce and master the environment" over which God gave us dominion: we manage our animals and plants. Click for Full Text!
Why People Move from Blue States: It's Not Just High Taxes
Post Date: 2023-02-12 20:41:16 by Charles_Byrd
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Defenders of high state taxes like to point out that surveys find few high-net-worth households move primarily to lower their tax bills. This may be so, but it misses the point: high-income, high-net-worth households don't move away from high tax states if they're getting fair value for their taxes. But if services and infrastructure are crumbling around them even as their taxes keep ratcheting higher, then the benefits of moving become much more compelling. In other words, if you're getting good value for your high taxes, then high taxes are not sufficient motivation to move. The problem is not high taxes per se, any more than a high cost of living is the reason to move from a ...
How to Survive Life in Our Looney Bin
Post Date: 2023-02-12 00:51:24 by Charles_Byrd
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In 1828, utopian socialist Robert Owen is supposed to have remarked to his business associate William Allen, “All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.” For obvious reasons, today we substitute mad or crazy for queer in that quotation, but the meaning remains the same. And despite Owen’s strange political beliefs, this quote does concisely summarize the state we now find ourselves in. Click for Full Text!
Three Cheers for Pat Buchanan
Post Date: 2023-02-12 00:45:58 by Charles_Byrd
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Pat Buchanan has penned his last weekly syndicated column. That is a real loss for American conservatism and American political intellectual history. Click for Full Text!
Review: Mother Country Radicals Spotlights the Weather Underground
Post Date: 2023-02-11 01:40:56 by Charles_Byrd
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There have been few satisfyingly in-depth chronicles of the inner workings of Weather Underground, the leftist group active in the late 1960s and 1970s that claimed to fight U.S. imperialistic violence around the world with violence at home. This rarity is likely because the chief players indeed lived "underground" to evade law enforcement. Fifty years later, a new podcast, Mother Country Radicals, aims to deliver a more thorough history of the gang. Two of the Weather Underground's most notorious members, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, had children, one of whom happens to be this podcast's host. Zayd Ayers Dohrn thus has a uniquely intimate, and uniquely cozy, view of ...
Be Grateful that First Responders and Teachers Earn Far Lower Incomes Than Sports Stars and Hollywood Actors
Post Date: 2023-02-08 22:44:49 by Charles_Byrd
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A few years ago, I was scolded by an email correspondent for my alleged indifference to the fact that first responders and teachers are paid far less than are Hollywood stars and professional athletes. My correspondent insisted that “[r]eal people know it’s wrong and dangerous that men playing games get paid so much more than men and women who save lives and educate our children.” The danger that my correspondent perceived in this situation is that, in her words, “This low pay will one day leave us with not enough teachers and paramedics.” Click for Full Text!
Justice Denied
Post Date: 2023-02-06 16:13:04 by Charles_Byrd
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I have been trying to determine which strategy currently being used by our elite rulers is the most problematic for “We the People” to recognize and understand as the means by which we are constantly being hoodwinked and controlled. And as I read once again about this or that fraud (or worse!) having been “revealed” and as a consequence of that revelation, will shortly be brought to court – coupled with the intimation that this procedure will lead to “justice” – I realized that perhaps the first thing necessary these days is to humanely end the presumption that interaction with American courts equals the possibility of justice for the people of ...
Stoics in the Shining City
Post Date: 2023-02-06 16:02:27 by Charles_Byrd
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Ridley Scott’s 2000 masterpiece Gladiator stands as one of the most important films of the 21st century, and one of the greatest action movies in cinematic history. Replete with exciting battle scenes and gladiatorial contests, the film dazzled audiences and helped revive the “sword and sandal” genre for the post-millennial era. The film was not merely spectacle, however. There were several scenes in the film in which characters philosophized on the meaning of life, giving many viewers their first exposure to the pagan Roman philosophy par excellence: Stoicism. Stoicism seemed out of place in 2000, the year in which an Evangelical Christian, George W. Bush, would take the ...
The deeply flawed campaign for racial reparations
Post Date: 2023-02-06 15:48:31 by Charles_Byrd
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IN DECEMBER, Boston's City Council voted to craft a plan to pay reparations for slavery and its aftermath. The vote was unanimous, and the councilor who authored the resolution called it "the start of a long- awaited yet necessary conversation" about racial reparations. The start? America's "conversation" about paying reparations for the harm caused by slavery has been underway for decades. Click for Full Text!
Review: The Crown Pits British Tradition Against Reform
Post Date: 2023-02-03 15:38:40 by Charles_Byrd
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Netflix's lightly fictionalized historical drama The Crown examines the British monarchy through its longest-serving chief, Queen Elizabeth II. The series delves into the role of institutions and whether it's best to modernize or to maintain tradition. Elizabeth and Prince Charles attempt modest modernizing reforms, but more often they acquiesce to custom. In The Crown's fifth season, the royals face the growing sentiment that their role is antiquated. While Elizabeth and Charles wonder whether the monarchy should change, Britons debate whether it should exist. Elizabeth denied her sister the right to marry a divorcee—and until this season denied her son the right to ...
Ominous Parallels Reconsidered
Post Date: 2023-02-03 15:17:58 by Charles_Byrd
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Forty years ago, I reviewed Leonard Peikoff’s Ominous Parallels very negatively, and with one exception, of which the less said, the better, this proved to be the most controversial review I have ever written. Perhaps it is time for a second look. In what follows, I’ll discuss some of the book’s main points and then offer a few critical remarks. The philosopher Leonard Peikoff was a member of Ayn Rand’s inner circle, and she considered him her intellectual heir. He has been the guiding light of the “official” Objectivist organization, the Ayn Rand Institute, since its inception. His aim in Ominous Parallels is to interpret Nazism from the standpoint of ...
Our System Has a Trust Deficit (And For Good Reason)
Post Date: 2023-02-02 23:21:53 by Charles_Byrd
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Trust is apparently an extremely elusive concept to implement. If you read The New York Times or Washington Post, you are told not to trust Fox News nor Newsmax nor OANN. If you listen to Fox News you are told not to trust the NYT nor WaPo nor CNN nor MSNBC. And they all seem to have derisive terminology they label each other while asserting that their label is the factual one. And that, you can trust. Democrats tell you to distrust Republicans. Republicans tell you to distrust Democrats. Republicans tell you to not trust any judge or bureaucrat nominated by Democrats nor RINOs. Democrats tell you not to trust anyone who is not ideologically aligned with them. Click for Full Text!
Inconsistency: The Most Consistent Thing About Politics
Post Date: 2023-02-02 23:08:32 by Charles_Byrd
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Since Grover Cleveland was president, no one has accused the average politician of being principled or even consistent. Year after year, Republicans claim to care about fiscal prudence but, when in power, spend like Democrats. In their turn, Democrats insist that they want to engineer a transition to a green-energy economy, but their actions contradict this goal. Of course, you would miss these contradictions if you looked only at the effort Democrats pour into distributing green-energy subsidies. The infrastructure bill of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act adopted last year included enormous subsidies for green energy. Then Congress doubled down by enacting the $1.7 trillion omnibus ...
The Continuous and Terminal Political Gaslighting of the American Masses
Post Date: 2023-02-01 16:39:36 by Charles_Byrd
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The term “gaslighting” is a relatively modern term, although it was the title of a 1944 movie of the same name, but has actually only been in vogue for a short period of time. The current purposeful use of the word gaslighting in all circles of the mainstream and many alternative sources, is in fact a form of gaslighting itself. If this is confusing, it is because it was put into the general everyday language intentionally, a smoke and mirrors technique, so as to cause a particular reaction. A little known term has now become mainstream, and this happened almost overnight. In the context of this essay, I am using the term in the sense of large scale political manipulation, not ...
First, They Lied About the Range . . .
Post Date: 2023-01-30 22:30:11 by Charles_Byrd
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There is a creepy consanguinity between the marketing and selling of the “masks” and then “vaccines” – and the marketing and selling of electric vehicles. It makes you wonder whether there might be a relationship . . . They arose as the “solution” to supposedly dire problems that – we were told – required immediate, right now amelioration. No time to wait and see – or even think before we’re obliged to act. The rush-rush tactics of the time-share selling fraudster, in other words. The “virus” is going to kill tens of millions – maybe more! – unless everyone “masks,” right now (and forever more). Stays home ...
Poverty a 'death sentence'? Not in America!
Post Date: 2023-01-30 22:22:35 by Charles_Byrd
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January is National Poverty in America Awareness Month. Click for Full Text!
What killed the housing supply? Government, no question
Post Date: 2023-01-30 22:15:34 by Charles_Byrd
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To find a time when the U.S. economy was as bad as it is today, one must time travel back to 1932 and the Great Depression. Last year gross domestic product grew a meager 2.9%, but disposal income plummeted by more than $1 trillion. While food and utility prices harass everyone on a daily basis, it is important to take a big-picture look. What people will discover is the American dream of home ownership, the most important investment of time and money to low- and middle-income people, is dead. Without home ownership, the path to the middle class is obliterated. Click for Full Text!
Social Contract Theory Idiocy: What Contract?
Post Date: 2023-01-30 21:56:24 by Charles_Byrd
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The very idea of any ‘social contract’ for any large group of individuals is asinine on its face. It is an impossibility to be sure if freedom is considered, and that is why constitutions, (‘social contracts’) which supposedly require individual explicit or ‘tacit’ consent, neither of which are valid in this context, are completely worthless, and only deceit by the state. Social contracts require that some or most freedoms be relinquished, and submission to the false authority of a ruler or ruling class be accepted for the ‘common good.’ This is usually based on only a majority ‘decision,’ or not, due to the corrupt and evil nature of ...
The taxman cometh
Post Date: 2023-01-30 21:34:45 by Charles_Byrd
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Make no mistake about it, the federal and state governments have a voracious appetite for the American people’s money. In fact, I don’t doubt for a moment there are Democrats who would love to tax 100% of an individual’s or a family’s income above a half a million dollars? A million dollars? Who knows? I would love to see a pollster do a survey of congressional members perspective on our progressive income tax. The results would be enlightening. Click for Full Text!
Is Secession the Right Thing to Do?
Post Date: 2023-01-29 19:59:18 by Charles_Byrd
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National Review of all places recently published an interesting piece on secession, penned by Hillsdale College Professor Miles Smith. I like Professor Smith. He has interesting things to say about the South on social media, and he is genuinely interested in the Southern tradition, not as a specimen to be studied under a microscope, but as a real place with real people and a vibrant culture. Click for Full Text!
Raise the Social Security Age to (At Least) 75
Post Date: 2023-01-27 01:26:01 by Charles_Byrd
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On January 10, the French government announced plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. The change would mean that after 2027, workers in France would have to work 43 years to qualify for a government pension, instead of 42 years. French workers promptly took to the street in protest decrying even this very small reduction government welfare. Like many countries in Western Europe and North America, France faces a major demographic problem in that its population is aging and demanding ever larger amounts of public pension funds. Meanwhile, the younger working-age population is shrinking as birth rates continue to fall. So, the French state is looking for ways to stay relatively ...
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