Perhaps the most vehement intellectual foolishness of our time is the demand that no culture may be judged. According to this dogma, all cultures are equally valid and very certainly none can be judged as inferior to another.
That’s not just hogwash, but dangerous hogwash. And the reason it’s dangerous is very simple:
Without evaluation there can be no quality control. Continue reading “How To Judge Cultures”
(Originally published November, 2014)
As many of you must know, the US government (and I’m not certain of all the agencies involved) has charged a young man named Ross Ulbricht with being “Dread Pirate Roberts” (DPR), the “drug kingpin” behind the Silk Road online bazaar. You probably do not know, however, that he goes on trial in two months. Continue reading “Druglord, Genius, or Saint? What Kind of Man, Really, Is Silk Road’s Dread Pirate Roberts?”
The problem with most humans is not that they think too highly of themselves: it’s that they think too little of themselves. They exhibit what G.K. Chesterton called a “weird and horrible humility.” To put it bluntly, we’ve been trained to perpetually self-accuse. Continue reading “We’re Better Than We Think We Are”
(Originally published in 2014)
I was recently involved in a day of meetings with small business owners in the American Midwest. It was both encouraging and sad at the same time. Continue reading “A Report from Middle America”
The Armenian Genocide was a systematic extermination that occurred during World War One, mostly in 1915. The killers were Ottoman Turks: agents and soldiers of that government, as well as eager civilians. Continue reading “The Forgotten Holocaust”
Humanity stands about halfway between gorillas and gods. The great question that looms over us, is this: “Which will we incorporate into our lives? Primate things or God things?” Continue reading “Are You a Gorilla or a God?”
(Originally published in October of 2013)
You may have heard that Silk Road – the truly free online market – was taken down today, by the FBI. In response, the price of Bitcoin crashed 24%.
Yet here I am – just a few hours later, feeling very optimistic. Why? Because the philosophy of freedom just showed itself to be massively stronger than statism and its “don’t think, just obey” philosophy. Continue reading “This Is Why Bitcoin Couldn’t Be Stopped”
Several years ago I received a jury summons. And while I detested the barbaric “show up or else” aspect of it, I did appreciate juries as a last ditch measure against tyranny. (Years ago I spent some time with Larry Dodge, the founder of the Fully Informed Jury Association, and I’ve been a fan ever since.) Continue reading “Why Juries Get Verdicts Wrong”
As I look back on my early work, I see too many cases of trying to accommodate hostile opponents… too much effort spent on making my arguments unassailable. And I see that it was wasted effort.
It’s time to unchain ourselves from apologetics. It’s time to accept that we are right and to act like it. We’ve already explained ourselves quite publicly and quite well. Those who want to know will know; those who prefer not to know will maintain their shells. Continue reading “We Must Stop Apologizing”
(Originally published in 2013.)
“There is a lot of ruin in a nation,” wrote Adam Smith, and what he meant was that it takes a long time for nations to fall, even when they’re dead on their feet. And he was certainly right.
America took its fatal blow in 1913, one hundred years ago; it just hasn’t hit the ground yet. This is a slow process, but it’s actually fast compared to the Romans. It took them several centuries to collapse. Continue reading “The Blow That Ended America 100 Years Ago”
