Wednesday, June 10, 2009 “It’s The Money” Rancher Seaborn Tay (after several of his employees became rustlers): “What do you reckon it is that makes a man go to hell like that?”Faithful Ranch Hand: “It’s the money, Mr. Tay.”Conn Conhager (disgustedly): “The money…. God help us if that’s all it is.”What is it that turns […]

Friday, June 12, 2009 The Tragedy and Farce of Collective Guilt (UPDATED, June 13) Dark Helmet, evil ruler of the Spaceballs: Before you die, Lone Star, there is something you should know about us.Lone Star, intrepid if thick-headed space hero: What?Dark Helmet (with triumphant menace): I … am your father’s, brother’s, nephew’s, cousin’s former roommate.Lone […]

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 An American “Yezhovschina”? Maxwell Smart: Are you a psychologist, Dr. Stueben? Dr. Stueben: I’m the president of the psychologist society for mental health and adjustment through fulfillment. Smart: What kind of an organization is that? Stueben: We’re a hate group.Smart (following a double-take): A hate group?Stueben: Oh, in the sense that […]

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 Totalitarianism In One City: Shreveport’s Gun-Grabbing Mayor Shreveport’s Big Boss Man, Cedric Glover, and unidentified flunky: According to Glover, an advocate of civilian disarmament, his police have the power to “suspend” the rights of any motorist they stop, and can seize a civilian’s firearms at will. Not that long ago, bigoted […]

Friday, July 3, 2009 A Covenant With Death Gory, gory hallelujah: A “shock and awe” assault on Baghdad, above; below, right, a “liberated” Iraqi mourns a dead relative. We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; […]

Tuesday, July 7, 2009 The Civil Religion and the Seventh-Inning Stretch (Updated, 7/8) “Love it! Love it! WE COMMAND YOU TO LOVE IT!!!” Jingoism rears its head at a post-9/11 Major League Baseball game. “There is … a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles…. While [the State] can […]

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 Beware William Tell’s Second Arrow That was indeed a man: William Tell, seen here immortalized in bronze next to a likeness of his son, is a hero not just to Swiss patriots, but to all those in whom the desire for freedom is irrepressible. “You Swiss are so proud of your […]

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 Too Many (Other) People Czar of the Bizarre: John Holdren, long-time militant eco-collectivist, is Barack Obama’s “Science Czar.” He is also on the record advocating totalitarian population control methods, including compelled abortion and mass sterilization through chemical warfare. As a left-leaning Rutgers law professor in the early 1970s, Ruth Bader Ginsburg […]