Twenty-three years ago today, America was attacked. Instead of focusing in on the political and legal shenanigans going on in politics, let us focus who never would have the luxury of political circuses. Never forget the victims who died, and those who fought back.
In Pace, Requiescat.
Nostalgia can be a hell of a drug. One of the points your humble author has emphasized is how the Left works sub rosa and doesn’t work openly until they believe they have fundamentally transformed society enough and the Overton Window is right. Most people don’t notice this because the fundamentals are changed so slowly, it’s below the threshold of being able to notice. But once those fundamentals have changed than the overt changes will not only be made but also generally be accepted, give or take an overreach from time to time.
There has been not only resistance or even constraints against the Left, but also reversals by the conservative intellectual movement in America that have resulted in more Right-leaning and conservative stances than generally existed even in the vaunted early Cold War era that many people nostalgically remember. It is also true that that societal ablative armor shielded people from experiencing the myriad things in the past that were comparably as bad if not worse. They were insulated from change and remember only the positive while they dwell on the new negative.
The adage that there is much ruin in a nation is quite consistent in societal norms being ablative armor that insulates the superficial observer from those fundamental transformations occurring outside of most people’s daily lives. But that ablative armor for many has worn thin and what is normal for younger people who never knew anything else is devastating in its disastrousness to those who are suddenly seeing the changes that had already taken place.
With all the biased news and hot takes over the recent chaos in the United Kingdom, particularly under newly minted Prime Minister Keir Starmer, an insightful and informative source of information is warranted. Baron Daniel Hannan helps illuminate the situation and the background of what lead to what’s happening now in this thorough interview.
Merry olde England isn’t so merry these days.
This week, @mkibbe is joined by @DanielJHannan, a Conservative Party member of the House of Lords, to find out what’s going on with our neighbors across the pond. @theblaze @blazetv pic.twitter.com/0lTsNYMSEF— Free the People (@freethepeople) August 21, 2024
With the Presidential election but nine weeks away, this is a good time to revisit Milton Friedman’s ten-part Free to Choose each Friday before the election as a reminder of why politically good sounding policies are often bad economics.
The second episode: The Tyranny of Control
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Life is hard and good times rare; death is easy and escape is normal
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Switzerland, the home of financially inclined gnomes, is going ahead with killing people by putting them in pods and letting the suicidal push a button to die.
“An assisted-suicide advocacy group in Switzerland has announced that a first-of-its-kind portable ‘suicide pod’ will soon be available for widespread use by people wishing to end their lives without medical supervision.
“The Sarco device, short for sarcophagus, is a sealed capsule which enables the person inside to press a button that rapidly replaces the oxygen inside the pod with nitrogen gas, resulting in death by hypoxia. Marketed as a ‘beautiful way [to die]’ by its supporters, the ghoulish and futuristic-looking capsule essentially amounts to a single-person gas chamber.”
And this will just be for the terminally ill who suffer debilitating pain who just want to die with dignity, right?
Nah, they’re using it to subsidize the killing of the poor.
“Citizens in Switzerland who are too poor to afford basic necessities are being offered the chance to be euthanized at a discounted price, the government announced on Wednesday.
“The portable suicide pods will be used for the first time in Switzerland, allowing people will various illnesses, mental issues, or social problems to end their life for just $20.”
The Native American Party, later just the American Party, was a nativist political party during the middle of the 19th Century that arose against waves of immigrants coming into America that threatened to replace (and indeed largely succeeded in replacing) the native born largely Anglo-Saxon population of the United States. This party became known as the Know Nothing party, and the immigrants they considered a threat to real Americans were the Irish and the Germans.
Apparently blaming the Irish and Germans is back in vogue, as GOP Vice-Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance seems to have expressed awkwardly.
JD Vance in 2021, while discussing earlier waves of immigration to the US:
"You had this massive wave of Italian, Irish and German immigration and that had its problems, its consequences. You had higher crime rates, you had these ethnic enclaves, you had inter-ethnic conflict in… pic.twitter.com/SQNPwaPBLx
— Jacqueline Sweet (@JSweetLI) August 15, 2024
To beg the question, can we really take seriously now what was a Mel Brooks joke from half-a-century ago?
The United Kingdom is well known for waging a war on sharp pointed objects (give or take a stick). They are also becoming well known for having a two-tiered justice system where some lives are ranking higher than others. In fact, they seem to rank, after a fashion, the undead higher than some living. Case in point (pun intended): The prohibition on “Zombie Knives”.
“From 24 September, it will be illegal to own zombie-style knives and machetes as they will be added to the list of dangerous prohibited items already banned, including zombie knives, butterfly knives, Samurai swords and push daggers.
“Ahead of the new ban coming into force, anyone who has one of these weapons is being urged to hand them over – safely and legally.”
With the Presidential election but ten weeks away, this is a good time to revisit Milton Friedman’s ten-part Free to Choose each Friday before the election as a reminder of why politically good sounding policies are often bad economics.
The first episode: The Power of the Market
‘Til next Friday.
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