19th Century America
If we wish to grasp American life in the 19th century, it’s probably best to start by understanding that when America was young, it had no myth. Once we really understand that, the rest falls into place fairly easily. Here’s how Alexis de Tocqueville (in National Character of Americans) described it in the 1830s: Continue reading “The West That Was, Part 3”
America, 1910
1910 was well before my own time, of course, but I knew at least ten people who lived through it as adults, and discussed the era at some length with one of them, my great uncle Dave. And so this is an era I feel I can still reach out and touch. Continue reading “The West That Was, Part 2”
There’s a common refrain that “Bitcoin fixes this.” Sometimes it’s used well and other times less so (it would often be more accurate to say “bitcoiners fix this”), but I’m being very serious when I say that Bitcoin fixes society.
I promise I won’t ask you to become normies. Please read on.
It seems there are easily a hundred thousand Bitcoin (or crypto) millionaires, with more reaching that level as the numbers rise. A million dollars isn’t actually that much money anymore, but it makes a nice marker all the same. Continue reading “It’s Time For Bitcoiners To Become Pillars of Their Communities”
A great tragedy of our era is that young people have no feeling of what Western civilization was like. In the government owned and operated schools where they sat for years, they were presented with a litany of the West’s failures, most of them exaggerated, or even imagined. Continue reading “The West That Was, Part 1”
The modern world will allow you to join any of a thousand collectives, but it will punish you for standing on your own, as a self-willed entity. People who commit this crime understand that they are outlaws in the present world. And if at first they don’t understand that, the world makes sure they know. Continue reading “The War Against Will”
It has become a common belief among Americans that they should “respect the office” of an official, even if they don’t respect the person holding that office. The same, of course, goes for “the law.” And while I understand that people saying such things are trying to be virtuous, they are mistaken. Continue reading “Why Americans Shouldn’t Respect Offices or Laws”
Guilt, as I’ve noted before, is the great vulnerability of the Western world. I’ll pass up an explanation of why for today, but the validity of this statement is made ever so clear by the fact that political types rise to power by championing one class or another of victims, portraying everyone else as somehow guilty. It works brilliantly, and by it bizarre and unbalanced people leap into power. Continue reading “We Must Stop Trying To Be Unassailable”
It struck me some time ago that the people we think of as “geniuses” tend to arrive, over time, at surprisingly similar sets of conclusions. It further strikes me that a simple list of such thoughts might be of value.
And so, here is a list pulled from my quotes file and presented without commentary. Enjoy: Continue reading “What Geniuses Believe”
Millions of decent people are spending their time and energy, trying to identify the secret bad guys of the world, then to prove that they’re right.
This is a serious problem, especially because monster hunts divert people with strong ethics from building new and better things.
So, here are the five reasons why I’m not interested in secret bad guys: Continue reading “Why I Don’t Spend Time On Secret Bad Guys”
