Anyone not performing the rituals must be confronted. Even threatened. Which makes me dislike their rituals even more. I want to get along with most people. I’ll even go along with some things that don’t seem too important in the long run. It’s a balance. I have no illusions I get it right, but I try. But don’t try to shove me across one of my lines in the sand.
Tag: business
Killing the American Meritocracy
It is my belief that those who prefer a centrally planned society to one based on freedom, liberty, and personal achievement are intentionally rewriting history so as to make people believe that so-called “privilege” rather than merit has been the primary factor in achieving success throughout American history.
We Need a Substitute for the Word ‘Support’
When people say they support something, it usually means they want governments to make laws that will advance that thing. Legislation is not like business, or family, or society. Those institutions require persuasion and value creation to get the thing you support to win. Legislation is a different beast. The single feature that distinguishes governments from every other institution is that they initiate violence to back everything they do.
Tariffs Cause Americans to Accept Inferior Deals
This is how tariffs work. They make superior offers less desirable for buyers by making them more costly. The result is that buyers end up with goods and services that, absent the tariff, they would not want to buy.
Including the Renegade
Are efforts to promote inclusion therefore self-defeating? Not if you’re careful, because actions speak louder than words. As I’ve argued before, the best way to make people feel included is just to be friendly and welcoming. Sermons divide us. Common decency brings us together.
Market Always Superior to Government
With a market business, if I don’t like their service I can choose to not use them. I can use a competitor or do without. They know you have a choice, so If they want to stay in business they can’t poison their customers.
In the Grain
Jeff Riggenbach points out that European civilization in the North American new world was founded by two distinct types of adventurer, the first sought freedom from the old order, while the second sought to impose a new order. We Americans, as a people have been in fundamental conflict ever since.
Be An Instigator
The word “instigator” speaks of someone who stirs up action in others – usually of the rebellious kind. But in our world of inertia and cowardice and status quo living and thinking, isn’t all action inherently rebellious?
The FDA’s Assault on Tobacco Consumers, Part 3
Early one morning last December, Jeff Gracik was heading to his southern California home garage-workshop where he makes his living when he heard a loud, hurried knock on his front door. Thinking it might be a rushed UPS driver, he quickly opened the door. But it wasn’t UPS. Standing on his doorstep were three badge-flashing inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They had come to inspect Jeff’s business.
A Preference for Peace: Not the Same Thing as Support for the Bogeyman of the Week
I’m not ashamed to admit it: I’m a peacenik. I think war is a bad thing. I’ve seen it up close and personal as an infantryman, and I’d like to see less of it, preferably none at all, either up close or from a distance. In part, this desire also makes me a “non-interventionist.” That is, in a world with 195 “sovereign nations,” it makes sense that the political officials in each one should mind his or her own state’s business and not try to decide who gets to run the other 194, or how they should do so.