One runs a risk whenever one cites the 20th century’s great terror states while discussing current ominous developments in the western democracies. Apparent comparisons of the United States or western and central European countries to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia will inevitably be hooted down with accusations of alarmist conspiracy-mongering and worse, shameful ahistoricity. Nevertheless, that must not keep us from noticing and pointing to contemporary events that bear an eerie resemblance, however slight, to things that went on in those totalitarian terror states.
Tag: action
Threaten, Bribe, and Bamboozle
Ruling elites have three basic ways to keep the subject population under their thumb: threaten, bribe, and bamboozle. Everything they do is a variant of one or more of these basic actions.
The Good Place
This morning I was listening to an older but still excellent iTunes University segment from Robert Higgs. It got me to think about markets versus government. Perhaps we think too often of these as mutually exclusive spheres. But what if Murphy’s Law is true — that if things can go wrong, they will?
John Bolton versus the International Criminal Court: A Simple Solution
Why is Bolton suddenly so concerned with protecting notions of “sovereignty” (he uses the word nine times) that the US government itself routinely ignores at its convenience, claiming global jurisdiction over individuals and organizations outside its own borders in matters ranging from the 17-year “war on terror” to its financial regulation and sanctions schemes?
Anonymous
The “senior official” who penned the anonymous opinion / editorial piece, published by the New York Times, is not a “coward,” but he or she is certainly a goner. The tragedy is that we should be hailing this person as a hero, not hunting this person like an escaped convict.
Neither a Contrarian Nor a Conformist; Simply an Individual
Being a contrarian has value, but only when it’s practiced non-dogmatically. When the crowd is moving in a constructive direction, it can be useful to go along with the crowd. If going along with the crowd serves your priorities and principles, then to resist the crowd is to resist yourself. And that is the complete opposite of being self-authentic.
A Critique and a Defense of Mythologizing the Past
Was Abraham Lincoln really a moral leader who saved the United States and ended slavery? Did George Washington really save the Continental Army and win the American revolution? Was Thomas Jefferson really a forward-thinking liberalizer?
Global Gun Deaths
Recently the Appeal to Authority Logic Fallacy has been foisted off on readers of publications, on the Web and off. Google “global gun deaths.” This looks like an annual proclamation — global gun deaths at 250,000. The latest flurry of stories stem from a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Through some sleight of mind, the compilers leave out direct explication of war-related deaths.
A Simple Technique for Launching Your Project in 20 Minutes
I ran across a friend who’s been dreaming about starting his business for years … and he feels stuck. Like many people who want to start a business, write a book or a blog, or launch some other kind of creative or entrepreneurial venture … he’s stuck in overwhelm, indecision, inaction.
Trump, Spinoza, and the Palestinian Refugees
Trump’s die-hard supporters like to say his extreme measures and tweets are merely opening moves in his art of deal-making. So let’s go with that: he’s holding five million desperate people hostage in order to convince the corrupt Palestinian Authority to take his deal. That’s reassuring.