If you share this romantic vision, you might even welcome my analysis: “Yes, I’m inspired by revolutionary idealism. At least they tried.” Yet calmly considered, this romantic vision is inexcusable. Launching a bloody war without even asking, “How likely is this war to improve the world?” is as “romantic” as drunk driving at a playground. Giving revolutionaries credit for “trying” is ridiculous. If you combine brutality with wishful thinking about the consequences, your real goal isn’t to make those consequences a reality. Your real goal is just to exercise brutality.
Tag: praise
The First Rungs on the Success Ladder
If we accept some form of Maslow’s hierarchy, the most basic human challenges of food, shelter, and safety are taken care of. We’re born into the middle of the pyramid. This is not a bad thing. I don’t want my kids to have to scavenge for food and clothing. But because success compounds, those born into abundance can miss out on the first, most basic forms of success, and then find the rest out of reach.
Apology for a Trainwreck
The ethnographies of Oscar Lewis paint a bleak picture of lower-class life. The thousands of pages of published interviews in books like Five Families, The Children of Sanchez, Four Men, and La Vida show a relentless trainwreck of impulsive sex, unplanned pregnancy, child neglect, child abuse, drug addiction, drunkenness, degenerate gambling, intra-family violence, near-random violence, parasitism, and gross financial mismanagement. …
How School Districts Weaponize Child Protection Services Against Uncooperative Parents
In my advocacy work with homeschooling families across the country, I frequently hear stories from parents who decided to homeschool their kids because schools were pressuring them to comply with various special education plans, push medications onto their children, or submit to other restrictive procedures they felt were not in their child’s best interest. Even more heartbreaking is the growing trend of school officials to unleash child protective services (CPS) on parents, homeschooling or not, who refuse to give in to a district’s demands.
Trump’s Foreign Policy War on Americans
Forgive me for repeating myself: Trump is a caricature of a conventional American politician — which is why the political establishment despises him so. He lacks the diplomatic costume that makes brutality acceptable or at least enables people to live comfortably with their heads in the sand.
Fixing Shitholes, Sandboxes, Intelligence, Nullification, & Politics (41m) – Editor’s Break 111
Editor’s Break 111 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: the terrible advice that is encouraging people in third world countries to stay and attempt to fix their governmental problems; the value in thinking of ideologies as sandboxes; what intelligence is and is not; the praiseworthiness that is the act of nullifying liberty-encroaching government laws; the contentious nature of politics; and more.
Against Veneration
I have close friends who venerate Adam Smith, John Rawls, Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan, John Maynard Keynes, Ayn Rand, John Stuart Mill, Ludwig von Mises, Paul Samuelson, Deirdre McCloskey, Elinor Ostrom, Hannah Arendt, Alexis de Tocqueville, David Hume, Murray Rothbard, Paul Krugman, or Thomas Jefferson. This veneration of the Great Names mystifies me on two levels.
The Trap of Niceness
Many libertarians try to err on the side of niceness. I think that’s praiseworthy. It’s nice to be nice. But, what worries me is that misplaced niceness makes the bad guys believe that they really aren’t doing anything all that bad. If no one is willing to call you out on what you’re doing, then it must not really…
Best to Be Smart About Social Media
It’s not necessary to shun social media; just be smart. Don’t offer too much unnecessary information that the bad guys can use against you, but take advantage of the opportunities it presents. Opportunities beyond any the world has ever seen.
On Statesmen
A seemingly respectable politician is often referred to as a “statesmen” and held in high regard by both their peers and the public at large. Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Lincoln were Statesmen with a capital S. In my view, statesmen are some of the worst type of statists.