Moralizing and Body Counts

by | Jul 25, 2016 | Drug Policy

Ambrosia Soto, mayor of Pungarabato, a small town west of Mexico City, was murdered last Saturday, reportedly for refusing to pay a local drug gang protection money from the town’s budget. Domingo Lopez Gonzalez, mayor of San Juan Chamula, a town in the southern...

We Don’t Need No Stinking Borders

by | Jul 1, 2016 | Immigration, Politics

Secretary of State John Kerry recently gave a commencement speech to Northeastern University graduates, wherein, amongst a whole lot of Trump bashing, he noted: You’re about to graduate into a complex and borderless world. Predictably, the conservative...

Democrats and Democracy

by | Jun 27, 2016 | Election, Politics

Stress tends to bring people’s true colors out, a truism observed by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy....

Contempt and Contemptibility

by | Jun 26, 2016 | Culture, Politics

I’m a libertarian. This means that, unless I deliberately seek one out, I run very little risk of finding myself in a libertarian echo chamber. I live in a reliably blue state/county/metropolitan area/city. This means that, unless I deliberately seek to avoid...

Shock and Condescension

by | Jun 25, 2016 | Culture, Politics

A few years ago, I attended a small party, a birthday celebration for a friend of a friend. The celebrant’s husband worked for the United Nations, as did some of the other party goers (all Europeans). They were nice enough people, but my lingering memory of that...