The problem with all three Isms (Socialism, Communism, Capitalism) is that when they fail at something, as fail they will, their protective layer gets an overhaul. It then aims its security weapons against the people. We saw that happen in China; we saw it happen in East Germany (Der realexistierende Sozialismus, “the real-existing socialism”) and…
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I’m really intrigued by the durability of this Epstein case. It does not seem to have required the watering can of legitimate news reporting: conspiracies have their own source of nourishment. For instance, I don’t think the WSJ story about DOJ having told Trump his name was in the documents had any appreciable effect on…
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I have been trying to put this into words that don’t sound too anti-democratic, but I fail. It simply is the case that, on occasion, a country has a majority of people with poor judgement. Athens collapsed not due to the superiority of Sparta, but via the arrogant populism of actors such as Cleon, the…
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Here’s why both parties suck:– Republicans want to cut taxes, which will increase the deficit some $5 trillion to $10 trillion over 10 years.– Democrats want to raise spending, which will cost somewhere between $5 trillion and $8 trillion over 10 yearsCutting taxes benefits the super-rich, who control the media and thus the minds of…
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Wittgenstein produced the best reason for learning a second (or third, or fourth) language:“The boundaries of my language are the boundaries of my world.”…“Our language can be perceived as an old city; a hodgepodge of alleys and squares, new houses with additions dating from many ages. Language is a labyrinth of streets.”

Maybe it’s time for us to take a page from the Trump script for ‘making America great again.’ After all, he took our descriptor, Fake News, and made it his own, turning it back on us. Drive around New York State. Interior Maine. West Virginia. You won’t see happy people gainfully employed in sparkling towns…
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The fires in and around Los Angeles are absolutely terrifying. Utterly heartbreaking. There is no responsible way to discuss these fires without acknowledging the almost unendurable pain that individuals feel when losing a home — not merely a house, but a home — and everything in it. Every keepsake. Every book. Every favorite article of…
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The growth of a bureaucracy in America (and in all Western democracies) is a direct result of the people’s will. If my town’s river is being polluted by a careless business in the town upstream, I would expect there to be some mechanism whereby my town could stop it. Ever since the Clean Water Act,…
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So now America is to become what Putin has made of Russia: a resurgent empire having learned absolutely nothing from history.