Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
This was a nasty anti-democratic mob. But I’m more worried about the anti-democratic elites. Let’s be clear about what took place at the Capitol Building last night. This was a mob assault on the institutions of democracy. The ragtag army of Capitol breachers may have looked ridiculous, decked out in Trump-wear and face paint and … Read more
For me, it was a little revelation to learn how Channel Islanders had behaved under Nazi occupation. I realized that all the grandstanding about British bravery under Churchill was sludge. Had the whole of the British Isles been occupied during World War Two, the British would have acted like the Vichy French. A few, to … Read more
One of the mistakes of nationalism is the belief that nationhood takes precedence over God. We think of Henry VIII’s establishment of a national church and the spilling of the blood of the martyrs on its altars. We are reminded, in this context, of St. Thomas More’s insistence that he was the king’s good servant … Read more
Over the past 250 years we have gone from nation of yeoman farmers to a nation of industrial workers to a nation of white-collar workers in technology, government, and the non-profit sector. With each transformation, the sense of being able to determine our own fate declines, and the sense of dependence on those with concentrations … Read more
Even as liberals deny the most basic biological realities, they hold themselves out as champions of “science.” The transgenderism to which they subscribe rests on an obvious repudiation of science. Calling men women and women men represents the triumph of a reality-defying subjectivism in our public life. During the Trump years, we heard a lot … Read more
We rightly see this effort to seize control of the Capitol as anti-democratic, as an embryonic and inchoate coup attempt. . . . The scale and symbolic significance of this attack are new and profoundly troubling. But it is also the culmination of several disturbing trends. For months now, we have witnessed a degradation of … Read more
It is of little consequence if Hillary-Hilaria Baldwin identifies as American or Spanish, or if white women like Jessica Krug or Rachel Dolezal consider themselves or are regarded by others as white or black. However, it is very important historically and politically to make clear that the identity of Jesus has been falsified by those … Read more
In the past eight months, two Capitol Hills have fallen. Two shocking events symbolize the abdication of authority by America’s ruling class, an abdication that has led to what can be described, not without exaggeration, as the slow-motion disintegration of the United States of America in its present form. The first occurred on June 8, … Read more
The mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday was engaged in nothing less than a seditious insurrection. Everyone who participated in the violence and lawlessness acted disgracefully. Officials who set the tone for the sedition, especially President Trump, acted even more disgracefully, as they are expected to know better, indeed to lead. Political violence … Read more
Speaking with the Register from his office on Capitol Hill about the lockdown, Fortenberry said the Catholic Church needs to take the lead in pushing back against the political tribalism that triggered today’s violence in Washington. Chaotic and disturbing scenes ensued on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon, as the building was locked down when Trump supporters … Read more
In just one month, Obama’s former acting solicitor general argued in defense of Nestle in a child slave labor case before the Supreme Court, Apple and Nike lobbied against a slave labor bill, Apple and Amazon were caught using slave labor, and Nestle, Pepsi, Unilever, and even the Girl Scouts were discovered to be using … Read more
The hypocrisy here is not Warnock’s, but the media’s. Newspapers like the Washington Post, The New York Times, and other major outlets never lack for condemnation of “theocrats” on the Right, for allegedly using politics to impose their religious views on the nation. The Times just published a favorable profile of Warnock, the pastor-politician, because … Read more
Since the world’s first CCTV camera was installed in Germany in 1942, the number of surveillance cameras around the world has grown immensely. In fact, as Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop notes, it only took us 79 years to go from one camera to nearly one billion of these devices. In the above interactive graphic, Surfshark … Read more
Late in 2019, a real-estate website predicted that Chicago’s housing market would be one of the nation’s worst over the next year. Chicago-area home prices, among the slowest to recover from the 2009 housing recession, were being suppressed by various factors, including escalating property taxes. Now it’s clear from a new study just how much … Read more
Given that “redneck” and “hillbilly” remain the last acceptable stereotypes among polite society, it isn’t surprising that the stereotypical urban home of poor, recently rural whites remains an object of scorn. The mere mention of a trailer park conjures images of criminals in wifebeaters, moldy mattresses thrown awry, and Confederate flags. As with most social … Read more
42.7 MILLION. That’s such a huge number. That’s how many innocent unborn people were killed in abortions in 2020 globally, according to Worldometer, a widely referenced statistics site. . . . More people were killed by abortions in 2020 than all deaths from cancer, malaria, HIV/AIDS, smoking, alcohol, and traffic accidents COMBINED. Abortion is the … Read more
Liberals cheered the news this week that a statue of Abraham Lincoln had been taken down in Boston. The statue depicted Lincoln holding his hand benevolently over a liberated slave. Though paternalistic themselves, liberals had no patience for the statue, which they pronounced “harmful.” That freed slaves had helped pay for the statue didn’t impress … Read more
Dystopia and Utopia are really the same place. It is simply viewed through different temporal perspectives. Utopia is invariably in the future, whereas Dystopia happens now. But the belief that they are different places is among the Utopian fantasies. “Heaven” might be mentioned as a variation on the Utopian theme, except, it works the other … Read more
Thomas Sowell on White Liberals “Many white liberals have adopted blacks as mascots, in order to ‘make a statement’ against American society. But mascots are only symbols, and their well-being is seldom a top priority.” Thomas Sowell Related PostsThe “Press” Progress! Why Americans Adore Conspiracy Theories Silencing the Culture Wars? Will this election … Read more
Their willingness to put children last and fight to keep schools closed has proven once and for all that teachers’ unions do not, in fact, have kids’ best interests at heart. One of the first things we learned about the coronavirus is that it has a near-zero death rate for kids. We also soon found … Read more
Tom here identifies yet another danger posed by state obstruction of peaceful activities. People are not pawns on a chessboard which, when moved from here to there by the visible hand, remain obediently in place until moved again by the visible hand. Instead, each of us has desires that we wish to fulfill and, when … Read more
In the summer of 2016, I went into a bookstore in Maine looking for a book that I thought my wife would like to read — a memoir about growing up as the heir to rural Appalachian culture and passing from that world into the gilded precincts of the meritocracy, written by a guy I … Read more
For Vice, Amarens Eggeraat, drawing on the work of political scientist Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, laments that there exists no pro-choice “image powerful enough to match the foetus as an icon of the anti-abortion movement.” Apparently she doesn’t quite equate the symbolic power of the “pussyhat” with that of human life. Credit where it’s due. Eggeraat’s … Read more
… why we should take seriously politicians who think that concocting increases in nominal spending power will keep the economy secure in the face of (1) government lockdowns that forcibly prevent a great deal of production from taking place, and (2) government- and media-stirred popular derangement that further dampens actual productive activity? We are “governed” … Read more
Rahav Gabay and others write, The present research investigates this Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV), which we define as an ongoing feeling that the self is a victim, which is generalized across many kinds of relationships. People who have a higher tendency for interpersonal victimhood feel victimized more often, more intensely, and for longer durations … Read more