Illegal Immigrants Are Destroying the GOP
The circle has closed. Donald Trump, who bested 16 other candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination with incendiary rhetoric and outlandish promises regarding illegal immigrants, has abandoned the posture that elevated him to the top. In doing so, he is...
Money and Politics
Most of us have some perceptions and beliefs that don't match reality. One modern example is the actual percentage of the American population that is gay vs what people's perception is. Gallup polls put the latter at around 1 in 4, when the reality is less than 1 in...
The Government and the Flag
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick made recent headlines by choosing not to stand for the playing of the National Anthem before a game in which he participated. He offered his reasons for doing so, and the NFL has accepted his right not to stand. While...
A Libertarian “Bah On The Olympics”
PART I: The People's Juice That an individual will cheat for glory tells us nothing new or interesting about the human condition. Aristotle, The Bible, and Shakespeare told us all about it before there was a "Western World" to have a conversation about western values...
Fostering Free Speech
In a refreshingly counter-current move, the University of Chicago sent a letter to incoming freshmen informing them that the University does not do trigger warnings, safe spaces, or the disinvitation of speakers based on content or reputation. In doing so, it declares...
What Now, Trump Fans?
It wasn't all that long ago that Donald Trump used a brutally black-and-white, absolutist position on illegal immigration to distinguish himself from the rest of the GOP presidential hopefuls. Building a wall, deporting 11 million illegal immigrants (more than half of...
Liberating Welfare
There's a somewhat counter-intuitive idea bouncing around in libertarian circles nowadays - that of a "guaranteed minimum income." It's such a topic of conversation that Google's fourth suggestion upon offered those three words is "libertarian." Columns have appeared...
Anatomy of a White Wash
For Hillary Clinton, the hits just keep on coming. The Associated Press, not exactly known for hostility directed at the Clintons, broke the story that "More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave...
The Drug War Claims Another Victim
Recent news concerning the overdose death of Prince points at the possibility that the pain pills he was taking were counterfeit. It seems that Prince thought he was taking Vicodin (or the generic equivalent), but the pills were actually Fentanyl. The linked article...
Poison Ivy
This essay's title, so hackneyed and obvious that it belongs on the cover of the New York Post, is a blunt assessment of the latest bit of garbage generated by one of the nation's elite universities. It seems that Princeton University, one eighth of the Ivy League,...
Ignoring Elephants
Technocrats with latent statist tendencies have been peddling a new narrative regarding jobs creation in America: that automation and technology are systemically replacing human labor, and that this trend will cause substantial unemployment problems as technology...
Cherry-Picking Pride and Patriotism
As I watched American athletes win gold in both the men's and women's 4x400 meter relay races the other night, and as I saw them celebrate by draping American flags over their shoulders and pose for group photos while holding them proudly aloft, I couldn't help but...
What Would They Say?
Every day, it seems, brings us a fresh story about politicians trying to further erode our rights. Those rights that the Constitution, the "supreme law of the land," the document that created this nation, the scrap of paper that sits at the top of a pile of laws and...
Narcan At The Gate
Editor's Note: This is the third in an on-going series of articles on the realities of the War on Drugs as seen by a New York City paramedic. Previous articles are here and here, and I highly recommend anyone who wants to understand the human toll this incredibly...
The Joy of Apathy
As they have done with so many other words, the perpetually aggrieved have muddied the word "tolerance" and turned it into a term that agitates and divides. That sad realization came to me as I was walking around the concessions courtyard of the Nikon Theater at Jones...
Fixing Health Insurance in America
Obamacare is in a death spiral. This was predicted, years back during its conception and inception, by many. It is, today, despite the unassailable reality, being ignored by many. Those who warned against its enactment (myself included) also predicted that, when it...
Government Spending and Human Nature
A recent "bottom story of the day" illustrated a fundamental inefficiency of large organizations and, by extension why government spending is so difficult to manage. The story, about how the US Department of Agriculture is going to hold a "summit" in support of...
Sowing Seeds of Unrest
Today's head-scratching moment is brought to you by the Board of Fire Commissioners of Arlington, NY. Under the lamest of excuses, they ordered that several American flags that had been recently attached to the town fire trucks to be removed. They dubbed them a...
Political Schadenfreude
Rare is the human being who never experiences schadenfreude, i.e. the pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune. I've been on both ends of it at various times in my life, and have even been subjected to a sort of pre-schadenfreude by people who...
Clinton’s Billionaires
Utter the words "Citizens United" in a room full of liberals at your peril. The Supreme Court case that affirmed First Amendment protections for political expenditures by corporations (or, if you're of a different mindset, evilly turned corporations into people) is a...
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