How about we do something novel in the new year? Let's stop worrying about the stuff most politicians, pundits, and activists want us to worry about and instead think about ourselves, our families, our friends, and whatever communities we choose to be part of. Let's forget about "the country" and the rest of the world. Let's individually pursue happiness. All I'm saying is that it's finally time for the politicians, bureaucrats, and know-it-all intelligentsia, left or right, to get out of the way and let us set our own agendas. Too self-centered? Well, too bad. Much evil results from...
pain
The Human Under the Numbers
The story of Anne Frank is tragic. If not for the words that she wrote in her diary, she would be a digit of history. Her diary is relatable, and the thoughts that collected inside her being during a horrible time in history gives the reader an idea of who she was. She is immortalized because of the little things that she wrote, not because of any great deeds recorded by others. As a victim of tyranny she is remembered as an innocent murdered. She is a story found inside the numbers. Thanks to her diary, we have a human figure to know and mourn, despite the mechanized bureaucratic...
Vaccines, Autonomy, and Mandates: A Libertarian Analysis
Prefatory Note Given the subject matter discussed below, I believe it prudent to state at the outset that I am not at all opposed to vaccinations themselves: indeed, I have received a COVID-19 vaccine, as well as all other normal-course vaccinations recommended for someone my age. Yet there are, it seems to me, interesting, difficult questions surrounding the state’s role in promoting or mandating vaccines. The goal here is to start a conversation not about the effectiveness of vaccines, but about the individual’s sphere of autonomy and what kinds of medical decisions are within it, and...
For One Day, Protestors Stopped the War Machine
I’ve attended most of the major antiwar protests in Washington since 9/11. At a 2005 protest, a cop tried to whack me on the head with a wooden pole. At a 2007 protest, I snapped a picture showing George W. Bush hanging next to the U.S. Capitol. But my favorite protest was a potent little ruckus that I almost missed. On a sunny late summer day in 2013, I ambled to downtown Washington to hike with a bunch of folks who enjoyed bantering as much as I did. The route for the jaunt started on the National Mall, passing by the Smithsonian, heading toward the World War II Memorial and points...
Austin’s Mayor…
...telling us to conserve energy, sitting in front of his painting with special accent lighting and thermostat turned up so high he doesn't need a sweater.
Episode 500: How Trump Can ‘Legally’ Win And Destroy the Left Forever w/ Curtis Yarvin
101 Minutes Strong Language Curtis Yarvin is a prolific writer who used to blog under the name Mencius Moldbug. He is famous for coining the phrase and the concept of "The Cathedral." Curtis recently released an article on his Substack entitled, "Reflections on the Late Election" in which he talks about the difference in the way that the Left and Right see power and use it. He goes on to paint a picture in which Donald Trump can not only win despite the results, but also vanquish the Left permanently. Reflections on the Late Election Curtis' Substack Unqualified Reservations The Power of...
Cops Frame Dozens of Innocent People With Fake Heroin
In Raleigh, NC. Oh well though that's just "collateral damage" in the great drug war right folks? Like my friend's sister who they killed with an "experimental" new pain killer since her doctors were afraid of what the federal cops might do if they found out he was giving her what she needed. How dare any of you people not hate government as much as I do? What the hell is wrong with you anyway?
As Much As They Might Want To, They Just Can’t Steal Their Way To Paradise
Jeff Snider at Real Clear Markets makes the case for capitalism Capitalism sure is messy, unpredictable, and, most of all, lumpy. It doesn’t go in a straight line, can cause tremendous stress and pain, and there are times when it gets caught up, for prolonged periods, in the bureaucratic messes of interfering morons. But once it is eventually set free, stable money, the world’s workers end up united if only in having no interest in the deplorable Marxist revolution - Trotsky, Lenin, or Mao - and its authoritarian Hotel...
Judge: Cops and DAs Can Break Any Law They Feel Like, What Are You Gonna Do About It? That’s What I Thought.
There is no such thing as the "rule of law." There are just corrupt men like the low-life scumbag in a black dress who goes by the name of Alan Albright, though you are to address him as "Your Honor," on pain of...
Collateral
The dirt crunched hard as the blade of the shovel pushed deeper, a boot kicked the metal head further into the Earth. Lifting the weight of rock and clumped dirt from the ground, he threw it to the side and repeated the action. The pain of the labor did not deter him, his hands blistered, the ground did not soften the further he went. Almost on instinct he dug until he had the right dimensions. He knew them intimately. Climbing from the hole that he had made, he turned to the pile of dirt nearby, his eyes dared not look beyond. Briefly he looked up to the sun, it was lowering on the...