Our current attitude toward the Earth is a conviction that it needs to be marked up with borders, divisions, and brands. This attitude is historical, and can be traced back in the Western world to Alexander the Great, nay even further to instances in the Cradle of Civilization, Mesopotamia.
Category: Nobody Asked, But
Hibernians
There is much that is being repeated today in America’s raging debate on immigration. The scapegoats this time are, however, ethnicities, religions, and atheisms from Central America to Africa and Palestine to North Korea.
Property and Self
It seems to me that this is a central economic question confronting the human species, but to resolve it is to put statist and interventionist footprints all over the question. Voluntaryists are stuck on the fence of believing the resolution while being restricted in implementing much of its implications.
Theatrics
How happy must the starry-eyed nativists be? They elected a snake oil merchant, and still have nothing to show for it. Who knew they would show such patience.
To Stand on Your Own
It takes an unbelievable amount of courage to stand on your own, to unschool your children, to refuse to pay taxes, to practice civil disobedience, to hike the Pacific Coast Trail or the Appalachian Trail, to write in the box when a statist form states “Do not write in this box,” to go to the Moon, to face the Denali Wilderness, to travel the world in earnest, to march to the beat of a different drummer.
Chimera
What will be the outcomes of putting tariffs on solar energy collectors and washing machines, other than another wink and nudge for cronyism?
Layer of Secrecy
This morning I got started with the headline in the local newspaper, “bill would add layer of secrecy to [government deliberations]… ” What could go wrong? And this is for state and local government in Kentucky. Do you reckon that Kentucky is starting some advanced weapons initiative?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Have you ever known someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)? I am very reluctant to label anybody in that way. First of all, I am a follower of Thomas Szasz, who cautioned strongly against using labels. Secondly, in the broader scheme of things, evolution may look like aberation from the sanctum of the “normal.”
Windmills
Last week, some bureacrat in Hawaii pushed the wrong button. This week, an otherwise paralyzed Congress and Oval Office sailed through a bill extending the warrantless surveillance of NSA. One might mistake these for windmills, but I see these, perhaps, as giants.
History as Observation
History is not so much the faithful recording of observed facts as it is an interview by the individual with his own memory. Everything else is hearsay. We can only know one’s own history, and even then, it is much more how one felt about that history than it is about what objective things were true.