|
Latest Articles: Opinions/Editorials
Infective Maltruism: Is Charity Still Charity When It Is Performed for Uncharitable Reasons?
Post Date: 2023-01-11 21:19:19 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
Looking beyond the “aw, neat, what a great person” façade of effective altruism, one clearly finds a level of narcissistic cynicism and a drive to the permanent power that financial immortality affords that is only matched by the amount of funds being dispersed. The gifts offered by today’s billionaires—the Silicon Valley crowd, et al. —sound great (-ish—very -ish), but to discount the obvious underlying reason is to fail to grasp the insidious nature of their beneficence. Click for Full Text!
Only a Virtuous People Can Sustain A Republic
Post Date: 2023-01-10 19:58:26 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
Some claim we are a democracy. Others a constitutional republic. Many find it difficult to reconcile the differences. There are those who might agree that our rule of law is based around the Constitution, but completely disagree about how the Constitution should be construed and how we approach jurisprudence. Click for Full Text!
America: a nation of giants led by pygmies
Post Date: 2023-01-09 20:32:00 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
The United States today stands as a living contradiction to the ‘great man theory of history’. For the US is a great country led by small minds. In recent times, it has been ruled by a narcissistic moral reprobate and it is now being run by a cognitively deficient and scandal-plagued politician. There is a growing feeling, particularly among the young, that today’s America is diminished. Yet the US remains the world’s premier power, and its last best hope against a rising authoritarian tide. Click for Full Text!
Liberty for Julian Assange
Post Date: 2023-01-06 01:07:06 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s vindication seems– maybe, perhaps, imaginably—achievable. It’s enough for me to publish my singular New Year resolution– not a wish, but a firm resolution– to more actively contribute to growing pressure to free Julian Assange, the mistreated, vilified and imprisoned, brave and brilliant founder of WikiLeaks. It’s a finite issue, unlike negotiations to end a raging war or a global agreement on climate controls. Yet freeing Assange had appeared almost insurmountable not long ago. Whereas, given the painstaking pursuit to free Assange by a pitifully small coterie of determined supporters, some success may be at hand. ...
The government's ongoing assault on liberty
Post Date: 2023-01-06 00:18:57 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
During the course of an FBI written response to a Freedom of Information Act request asking about the trade names and suppliers of surveillance software the FBI had purchased, and in a legal brief submitted to a federal judge, the government has yet again quietly acknowledged its antipathy to constitutional provisions that all of its employees have sworn to uphold. Since we are dealing with software used to spy on Americans in the U.S. and abroad, the constitutional right being transgressed is the right to privacy. Click for Full Text!
Sanity, Harmony, Love, Amazement, and Freedom, Are Now the Hidden Side of Life: A Backward and Deranged State of Mind
Post Date: 2023-01-05 23:59:36 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
What in the world has happened to the human animal? What has happened to man? Why is it acceptable to be lorded over, to be allowed to exist, to be told what to do and what not to do, to be metaphorically and in many cases literally chained by draconian mandates, to be restricted as to what to say and what not to say, and to be controlled by the malevolent dregs of society called ‘leaders’ and rulers? Is this the true nature of man, or is this deranged state of mind the creation of evil intent by those seeking the power to dominate others? This is a very important distinction, for if this weak and pathetic state of being is natural, then there is nothing that can remedy the misery ...
Southwest's Meltdown Reminds Us We Must End Airlines' Corporate Welfare
Post Date: 2023-01-04 18:47:05 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
Southwest Airlines experience an enormous meltdown over the Christmas holiday week last month, cancelling thousands of flights, and losing track of—or outright losing—countless pieces of luggage. The airline was full of excuses, of course. As has become fashionable for government and corporate screw-ups, airline management attempted to blame covid for staffing problems. Southwest also blamed the weather. It's amazing they didn't also try to somehow blame "Russia's war in Ukraine"—as the stock phrase now goes—as well. Yet, no other major airline had nearly the troubles that Southwest had in terms of either weather delays or staffing problems. ...
Darn that cutting edge science. It’s not supposed to aid the pro-life cause
Post Date: 2023-01-03 16:33:36 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
In the Internet age, I think we all know how easy it is to dash something off, take a quick look (maybe even two), and push “send.” I try my darndest not to fall into that trap, and no doubt you do as well. Having said that, many the times I honestly ask myself, do pro- abortionists actually listen to what they say or read what they write?
What If They Believe It?
Post Date: 2023-01-03 16:19:51 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
One of the questions no one in the media plans to ask is why the FBI was so deeply involved in the Twitter disinformation campaigns? The word “disinformation” is the correct word in this case. Twitter was actively trying to provide the public with false information about a wide range of issues. One tool they used was silencing those who contradicted official narratives. They would instruct the Twitter censorship team to take down posts and ban particular users. Presumably, the FBI was not just involved with Twitter, but with all of the big social media companies. Of course, this was just part of what the FBI has been doing to undermine the normal functioning of society. Victor ...
The Twelve Days of Christmas... Till January 6th
Post Date: 2023-01-03 15:47:14 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
I don't listen to the radio very much. But if I'm driving alone, I will sometimes turn it on. I'll usually listen to a classic rock station, or maybe talk radio - but this time I landed on the classical station and was listening. The soft baritone voice of the announcer came on to wish me a happy first day of Kwanzaa, and told me that the theme of the day was Unity. They promised music by a black female composer later on. Click for Full Text!
Liberals have learned nothing in the Biden era
Post Date: 2023-01-02 22:00:30 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
Though 2022 was a feast for cynics, The Washington Post is confident that next year will be much happier — at least for Democrats. The DC newspaper this week published a piece called “15 Reasons You Should be Hopeful for 2023.” It should have been called “liberals have learned nothing in the Biden era.” Click for Full Text!
Artificial Art
Post Date: 2023-01-02 21:58:38 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
For all of us who scribble for publication, at however low a level, all activities other than writing take on at most a secondary importance. Even meals, necessary as they no doubt are, can come to seem unwanted interruptions of the real business of life, which is writing. We are apt to forget that reading in general, and of our work in particular, is not of the same importance to 99.99 percent of the population, including that part of it that has great power over our lives, as it is to us. It is a humbling thought (humbling, that is, for scribblers) that in many small towns it is easier to find an electronic cigarette or have oneself tattooed than to buy a book. And now comes another blow ...
Will the Fed Blink in 2023? Will Congress Throw More Fuel on the Fire?
Post Date: 2023-01-02 21:55:31 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
In the final week of 2022, we Americans can foresee two significant economic risks in 2023. The first one is a probability that the Federal Reserve will get weak-kneed and stop raising interest rates before inflation is truly under control. The second risk is that Congress will continue to spend and borrow money irresponsibly. The likely mix of these two hazards would all but ensure that our economic misery lasts much longer than necessary. Let's start with the first risk. In theory, to tame inflation, the Fed will need to push real interest rates not only high — as it has already done — but higher than the highest rate that the Fed is now targeting, and in fact much higher ...
14 Signs of Totalitarianism
Post Date: 2023-01-02 21:35:10 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
We all know the cons of Twitter, but one of the pros is discovering new and interesting people. One of my favorite new follows is Benjamin Carlson, a public relations guru and former editor at The Atlantic. Carlson’s tweets are among the best you’ll find on Twitter, and he clearly has a keen understanding of the intersections between media and government, power and propaganda (both current and historically). Click for Full Text!
Forecast 2023 — Get Out of the Way if You Can’t Lend a Hand
Post Date: 2022-12-31 05:02:39 by Charles_Byrd
1 Comments
It’s hard to contemplate 2023 without spiraling into nausea, tachycardia, and cold sweat. But it is an inescapable duty here to lay out the probabilities ahead. I’ve been doing this forecast thing for some years now, and, of course, I am often wrong, so take some solace in that and relax. Maybe the new year will be all unicorns, rainbows, talking gerbils, and candied violets. 2022 sure was a cold shower. The long emergency I talk so much about finally got up to cruising speed, with the ectoplasmic “Joe Biden” revving our country into economic, political, and cultural collapse — a hat- trick of calamity — and he did it more swiftly and directly than any emperor ...
So Long 2022, Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out
Post Date: 2022-12-31 04:59:24 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
When 2020 was winding down, the mantra was, “good riddance.” There couldn’t be another year that bad. Except 2021 was even worse. And then 2022- you can sense a pattern here. It’s not only the COVID vaccine that’s on “warp speed,” it’s the rush towards an Orwellian world we couldn’t have imagined even five years ago. 2022 was a hard one for me personally. As I’ve written about perhaps too many times, my brother Ricky died suddenly on January 20. But it wasn’t the #DiedSuddenly that was all the rage online until social media banned it. He wasn’t vaccinated, so that bioweapon didn’t kill him, as it has killed untold numbers ...
Did Fake News Scare You This Week?
Post Date: 2022-12-31 04:56:56 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
During my years of political involvement, I have grown expert in ways that the media lie and manipulate. It disgusts me to see. Click for Full Text!
Note From San Francisco
Post Date: 2022-12-31 04:52:27 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
Having seen the redwoods with the boys by day, sampled dim sum last evening, and overdosed nights on San Francisco movies (Bullitt, Vertigo, the underrated Zodiac), I’m headed home tonight. A terrific trip, which I won’t forget. In the coming days you’ll find a new thread on Twitter, along with a two- part article here at TK explaining the latest #TwitterFiles findings. Even as someone in the middle of it, naturally jazzed by everything I’m reading, I feel the necessity of explaining why it’s important to keep hammering at this. Click for Full Text!
Ethics for Inhumans
Post Date: 2022-12-30 17:24:34 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
William MacAskill, a philosophy professor at Oxford and a leading light of the effective altruism movement, has recently been in the news owing to the frenzied and fraudulent finance of his protégé Sam Bankman-Fried, who now awaits trial. The “effective altruists” took seriously the implications Peter Singer drew from his famous thought experiment: Suppose you come across a small child who is drowning in a pond. You can easily rescue the child, but if you do so, you will ruin the expensive pair of shoes you are wearing. If you refuse to save the child, wouldn’t this show you are a heartless brute? But, Singer says, nothing in the moral point of the example ...
The Case for Disbanding Public Health Agencies
Post Date: 2022-12-29 21:28:22 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
During March of 2020, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, showed us how public health can be managed ethically by refusing to lockdown Sweden’s residents. The rest of the public health discipline, however, entered the territory in which we now place the universally castigated discipline of eugenics. Eugenics breaches ethics and causes enormous harm to the fabric of mankind. Likewise, lockdowns breach ethics and have terrorized or killed millions of people worldwide. I recently assisted Professor Gigi Foster in preparing a cost-benefit analysis of Australia’s response to covid-19. This analysis, published as a book, shows that the harm caused by lockdowns in ...
Crisis Is the Norm in Domestic War, but This Country and the World Are in Crisis by Design
Post Date: 2022-12-29 20:07:20 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
It should have become obvious by this time that ‘crisis’ management political policy is the new war being waged against society as a whole, in order for the state and its masters to gain total control over every aspect of human life, regardless of the dire consequences to the rest of us. How does it feel to be completely inconsequential to the ruling element of this nation and others, while the wealthy controlling few at the top decide whether you are to work, to travel, to be free, to be with family and friends, to eat, to keep warm, and even to live or die? Those who continue to believe in and support this heinous system of totalitarian governance will likely never have a clue ...
The Price Of Sophistry
Post Date: 2022-12-28 23:31:01 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
In modern usage, the terms sophism and sophistry are used interchangeably with “inaccurate” or “deliberately misleading.” A sophist is someone who relies upon fallacious arguments or reasoning to win a debate. Someone can be accused of sophistry because they are too stupid to see the flaws in their reasoning. Other times they are accused of deliberately misleading arguments. The motivation is malice rather than stupidity or carelessness. This negative view of sophistry was not always so. We get the word from the Greeks who used the word to mean teacher. A sophist hired himself out to rich families to instruct their sons in philosophy, math, rhetoric and music. The ...
Charity, Better Than Government
Post Date: 2022-12-28 22:35:21 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
It’s the season for giving. Click for Full Text!
China has announced several significant changes to how it will manage Covid-19 outbreaks. Strict lockdowns affecting entire communities will no longer be implemented, while those arriving in the country will not be subjected to quarantine, the Chines
Post Date: 2022-12-27 20:44:07 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
Humans are both predatory and cooperative. Jonathan Haidt, whose works on moral psychology include The Righteous Mind, says that we are “90 percent chimp, 10 percent bee.” Chimpanzees are violent and competitive, with little ability to cooperate. Bees coordinate effectively and seem willing to sacrifice for the sake of the hive. Much political theory follows Thomas Hobbes, who wrote that living without a government would mean enduring a “war of all against all.” Without an overriding authority, the chimpanzee component of human nature would not permit us to live peacefully with one another. Click for Full Text!
The U.S. spends $4 billion a year subsidizing ‘Stalinist-style’ domestic sugar production
Post Date: 2022-12-27 20:25:26 by Charles_Byrd
0 Comments
In the United States, fewer than 4,500 farm businesses produce sugar. Yet they cost taxpayers up to $4 billion a year in subsidies. The U.S. sugar program is a Stalinist-style supply control initiative that limits imports through quotas and domestic production through what are called marketing allotments. Click for Full Text!
Latest [Newer] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 [Older]
|
