Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
The concept of inflation (the depreciation of purchasing power of a specific currency) applies to other goods besides money. Inflation is related to the Law of Supply and Demand. As the supply of a commodity increases, the value decreases. Conversely, as the good becomes more scarce, the value of the commodity increases. This same concept … Read more
Congressmen, senators, and their senior staffers have all sorts of incentives when making policy. There are the noble incentives of seeking the common good, helping the vulnerable, and protecting liberty and human dignity. There are the standard incentives of getting reelected, and then there are the base incentives, such as raising money from donors, or … Read more
Teenagers used to crave fun and freedom. Today’s lot are more uptight than their parents. In pre-industrial societies, you went straight from being a child to being an adult the minute you hit adolescence. Then you laboured on the land and you fought in wars. No one raised an eyebrow when Shakespeare had young teens … Read more
Addictive “brain hijacking” methods used by social media giants to keep users on their platforms have harmful effects, particularly on children, according to industry insider Rex Lee, who says the companies may be violating child protection laws and consumer protection laws by employing such techniques. Lee, who has over 35 years of experience in the … Read more
Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate subverts the constitutional design. “In republican governments, the legislative authority necessarily predominates,” said James Madison. But what sort of government is it when the president thinks he can decree a nationwide vaccine mandate without the legislature’s involvement? Such a decree would seem to be more characteristic of an elective monarchy than … Read more
Today’s a day that ends in “y,” so one of the far-left Democrats in Congress is saying something absurd on Twitter. This time, it’s Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts progressive. Pressley recently stirred up a storm online when she accused those who disagree with student debt cancellation of “policy violence.” Pressley is a longtime supporter … Read more
The rise of violent crime in urban America, nurtured by the policies of liberal defund-the-police Democratic mayors and the woke prosecutors protected by woke newsrooms, is now completely out of control. And the other day when a CTA bus driver was mercilessly beaten by a mob on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago—just part of a … Read more
The difficulty with justice is that it manifests itself to us prismatically. Economic justice, social justice, legal justice, reparative justice—which of these is primary? Indeed, the word justice can signify virtually the whole of moral goodness, what once was called righteousness. Whenever we sense that something has gone wrong, we tend to appeal to justice … Read more
If ignorance is bliss, the Western world should be ecstatic. Even as colleges churn out degrees and collect fees, and technology makes information instantly accessible, the basic level of literacy, as measured by such things as reading books and acquainting oneself with the past, is in a precipitous decline. Rather than building a vital world … Read more
The Capitol riot happened because President Donald Trump simply lied, and lied, and lied. As cable television broadcast the scenes of Trump supporters breaking past police lines and even smashing their way into the Capitol on January 6, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., texted Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff: “He’s got … Read more
The more loyalty to a political leader or movement supplants loyalty to the constitutional order, the closer we come to revolution. Steve Bannon, the recently indicted Trump sycophant and ex-Breitbart jackass, sometimes describes himself as a “Leninist.” I believe him. And he isn’t alone. For Vladimir Lenin, a revolution required three preconditions: The masses had … Read more
The iconoclastic gestures of the woke left bear an alarming resemblance to the excesses of the French Revolution I spent the first third of my career among conservatives and the next two-thirds among progressives. At first, I thought both parties were equally cynical and instrumental when it came to theories of constitutional authority. The party … Read more
Moreso than perhaps any other state, California has aggressively embraced the “woke” line of thinking. Before schools decided to phase out “D” and “F” grades, LA County hired a bona fide social justice warrior to be its top public health official during the COVID pandemic. And now, the California Department of Education is facing a … Read more
Woke ideology is losing support even among its own constituency. Years ago at a block party in my old neighborhood, my next-door neighbor, a Mexican-American named Lawrence, introduced himself to a new resident, a white self-proclaimed activist lawyer. “No, no!” she scolded him. “Lorenzo!” The chutzpah of a white woman telling a Mexican-American man how … Read more
Conservatives used to say: “America is a Christian nation.” Everybody knows what they meant by that, even if many people pretended not to understand. We are not a country with a national church or a national faith. We are — or were — a “Christian nation” in the sense that the United States grew out … Read more
The next crisis of our public schools will be their depopulation. Enrollments have begun dropping across the country — in some places rapidly. This will be hard to comprehend for those of us who recall schools adding temporary classrooms to absorb the millennials. COVID is only part of the problem, and probably the smallest part. … Read more
If you squint, you can just about see the outlines of a case for President Pete. Viewed from his most flattering angle, Buttigieg might look like the perfect candidate to save the hopelessly out-of-touch Democrats. Hailing from a rust-belt city in a red state, he can construct a better claim to broad appeal than Harris, … Read more
Friday was arguably the worst day for Joe Biden’s presidency so far. And it could be the death knell for the Build Back Better bill’s lurch toward big-government socialism. First, the Labor Department reported inflation is now running at just under 7 percent over the last year. Prices were rising at a 2 percent annual … Read more
In the name of ‘dismantling’ sexual ‘power structures,’ queer theorists must make things that were once taboo (like sexualizing children) no longer taboo. Allyn Walker, a former professor at Old Dominion University who identifies as non-binary, resigned last month following criticism stemming from Walker’s views on pedophilia. Walker argued that pedophiles should be destigmatized by … Read more
My daughter’s story is no longer novel. Stories like it are occurring in your state, your town, and perhaps even on your street. Gender dysphoria—the incongruence between the mind and the body—moves stealthily and quickly to invade girls and boys alike. But this isn’t a cautionary tale. It’s a warning. My daughter was an ultrafeminine … Read more
And guess who the primary hater is? Hate crimes against Christianity and its followers in Europe — formerly and for centuries the guardian and disseminator of Christ’s teachings — are at an all-time high. According to a recent report, at least a quarter of all hate crimes registered in Europe in 2020 were anti-Christian in … Read more
BYE BYE! Now that entertainer and Obama White House star Jussie Smollett has been convicted on multiple counts of faking an anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Trump hate crime against himself, what do we hear? We hear a predictable chorus from Woke Media World: Let it go. Forget it. Leave it alone. Yes, he’s guilty. And … Read more
In 2018, journalists from The New York Times and The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for their biased and inaccurate coverage of Russia’s alleged collaboration with the Trump campaign to interfere with the 2016 election, a claim we now know was a hoax. So, when are they going to return the … Read more
America’s cities are petri dishes of “progressive” governance. Anyone who cares to see the consequences of radical left-wing policies need look no further than our country’s urban centers. From the monstrous modernist architecture to decaying infrastructure, they look more like Soviet hell than the once-thriving metropolises that were the envy of the modern world. The … Read more
A proposed change to the NCAA constitution would force member schools to embrace an agenda of ‘gender equity, diversity and inclusion’ as a condition of membership Athletics has long been an important part of Catholic education in the United States, but trouble is brewing. Already schools and colleges face social and legal pressure to abandon … Read more