Alpha By Proxy
Playwright, auteur, and late-in-life conservative convert David Mamet referred to socialism as the abdication of responsibility. The resurgence of socialism in the American political landscape, itself born of the "childing" of age-of-majority youth via safe spaces,...
The Tyranny of the List
One of my best friends keeps lists. Not lists of to-do things, like one might imagine (although it's safe to assume he has those as well), but inventory lists, including one that tallies every movie he's ever seen. I do such lists, and they include musical concerts,...
New York’s Icarian Overreach
Two bits of regulatory news in New York City reminded me today of the tragedy of Icarus. The first, a gun rights case before the Supreme Court, has the city's regulators and state's lawmakers in a panic. The second, the recent massive expansion of the city's...
Political Money and Weaponized Doxxing
Money and politics. They go together like cheese and crackers, chips and salsa, coffee and donuts, pencil and paper, peanut butter and jelly (or bananas if you're Elvis), milk and cookies, and dogs and ponies. More so, in fact. Money in politics is speech. It is...
A Political Platform For Us All…
... To Love and Hate Allow me to offer a campaign platform: A nationalized health care system, funded and managed at the state/local level, with private health insurance purchaseable by those who want it. A transition to a privatized, defined-contribution Social...
Police Brutality: Symptom, Not Disease
Prevalent in the Presidential debates was publicity over "The Talk" candidate Bill De Blasio's had to have with his son Dante. The Mayor needed to warn his mixed-race, African-looking son of the dangers of an encounter with his own NYPD. Evidently, this is a talk of...
Side-Stepping Equality
My recent post about Trump's tweet aimed at the four freshmen congresswomen now dubbed 'the squad' began as a musing on the nature of equality and racism in our society today. As J.R.R. Tolkien commented, the "tale grew in the telling," and turned into an analysis of...
Redefining Language For Glorious Victory
I was given a very informative assignment this weekend: specifically, reading up on the newest definition of racism that is popular in left-wing circles. You may be familiar with the previous definition of racism, which is often abbreviated as "racism = prejudice +...
Border Bottlenecks and B-1 Bombers
Q: What do our border emergencies and the readiness of our military have in common? A: The Firemen First Principal. This refers to the government's way of closing down its vital functions before they look to strip out waste or alter failed policies. Once ensconced in...
Critical Theory and the Frankfurt School
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is an opinion piece I came across, years ago. It is written about a specific topic, described in the title, but the value of the article FAR transcends the "metal scene" in its insightful history, explanation, and analysis of Critical Theory and...
Socialism and Justice
Half a century ago, President Lyndon Johnson decided that he would make the Democratic Party the champion of minorities and the oppressed. In doing so, he upended the party's long history and broke with the segregationists in its ranks. He was successful, at least in...
Systemic Equivocation
Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, seeking to pander as hard as the rest of his clown-van cohorts, recently played the race card in an interview on NPR. Namely, he asserted that: Systemic racism [is] all around us. It's the air we breathe. I'm struck by the...
Just Who, Exactly, Do They Work For?
I've spent far too much of my life dealing with the headaches of owning a car in New York City (and, to a lesser extent, its suburbs). As if the near-eternal traffic isn't enough, parking is itself a giant time-suck for too many of us. The neighborhood where I spend...
Coexist, or Comply?
I live in the New York City metro area, which means I'm surrounded by people of a left-of-center political persuasion. 80% of New York City voters voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, and for Clinton in 2016. While there are pockets of Republicans here and there...
Ayanna Pressley, Sonia Sotomayor, and the Appeal To Identity
Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley recently stoked the flames of identity politics, and riled a number of her more moderate Democratic brethren, with a jaw-dropper of a proclamation: If you’re not prepared to come to that table and represent that voice, don’t...
A Tragedy of Errors
A few comments I recently read about Barry Goldwater and the Civil Rights act reminded me that personal destruction via accusations of racism are a tactic that goes back decades. Goldwater voted against the version of the Civil Rights Act that ultimately became law....
Rights and Wrongs
Consider the island nation of Cuba, a nation under communist rule for sixty years, and its progressive defenders/apologists. Cuba, we are told, is a wonderful place. It has a near-100% literacy rate, and it has allegedly superb medical care for its citizens. In fact,...
James Bond and the Glue Factory
Yesterday's big news in the entertainment world was the revelation that James Bond is being retired. Not Daniel Craig, who succeeded Sean Connery, David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan in the role, but James Bond himself. The MI6...
Liars and Fools
Bill De Blasio, mayor of New York for another two and a half years, then (thankfully) term-limited into the history books and (hopefully) ignominious obscurity, is continuing his (farcical) quest for the Democratic Presidential nomination by engaging in rhetoric...
Leave No Trace
As I picked up after my old hound dog today (yeah, a great "visual" with which to open an essay), I briefly pondered the life cycle of the plastic shopping bag that now contains his ablutions. I recently covered the empty self-importance surrounding the drive to ban...
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