Free-Man's Perspective

I’ve touched upon this subject in my subscription newsletter, but I had no plans to write anything more until I got a note from a friend, mentioning a particular investment analyst and his views on investing over the next few years. I had to agree that it was brilliant analysis, but at the same time I knew that I’d never do anything about it, because I simply can’t bring myself to put money into “the markets” anymore.

As a young man I spent time learning the nuts and bolts of investing: Price to earning ratios, book values, charting, puts, calls, covered positions, and so on. And when I had extra money, I tended to put it into the markets and use my tools. But I can no longer do that, and I think explaining why may be useful. Continue reading “Why I No Longer Invest In Stocks And Bonds”

There are times that not only try men’s souls, but warp them.

Westerners of our generations never believed that mass manias could re-appear, but we’re living through one right now, and against my wishes I feel a need to address it; not as a victim or a participant, but as an observer. Continue reading “The Mania of 2021”

I am not trying to insult libertarians; they’ve been right, or reasonably close to right, on most everything, and for decades on end; that’s not a trivial thing. Nonetheless, they could never get much moving in the world, while Bitcoiners, to use an old but fitting phrase, are turning the world upside-down.

I think it’s important to understand why. Continue reading “Why Bitcoiners Are Doing What Libertarians Never Could”

As far back as we can see in any detail, we find humans creating art. But art is an odd thing, in that people generally create it for internal (and thus hard-to-articulate) reasons, making clear, logical explanations difficult. Making it still harder has been an obsession with incoherent and confusing art over the past century… something that Salvador Dali once called, “the cult of strange.”

And so most of us have had a hard time coming to grips with art. What, after all, is the point of a painting that provides no coherent image? And why would people consider a signed urinal great art? (Yes, that’s a real example.)

We can begin our examination with a passage from Leo Tolstoy’s What Is Art?: Continue reading “The Purpose And Value of Art”

We all know that parenthood has been publicly trashed over the past half century. The larger culture portrays Fathers as dolts and full-time moms as second class women. These ideas, hammered endlessly and over decades, have had their effects.

The big drivers of this abuse have been socialism and Freudian beliefs. I’ll explain below, but let’s be clear on the fact that both socialism and Freud’s “it’s your parents’ fault” can and must be thrown aside. We don’t need to keep arguing the same points, simply because dogmatists in marble buildings refuse to see reality. Continue reading “Revisiting Parenthood, After A Century of Socialism And Freud”

It has become common to speak of Judeo-Christian principles, but that also begs the question of precisely what those principles are. And so, not long ago, I searched for a clear set of them and came up dry. I found statements of religious beliefs and I found lists of good habits that were spawned by Judeo-Christian principles, but I didn’t find the principles themselves. Continue reading “What Are The Judeo-Christian Principles?”

In 1999, my friend Henry Lamb mentioned that he had been attending UN meetings. I thought it sounded intriguing and asked for details. After all, reading about an organization is one thing; actually attending its meetings is another. And because I was so enthused, Henry offered to get me into the Kyoto accord meetings in Bonn, Germany. Continue reading “My Adventures At Climate Change Central”

Although most of us don’t like admitting it, we in the West are living in a state of tyranny. I won’t waste time on details, but when force-backed edicts intrude into every aspect of our lives (“Did you strap your child into a seat approved for their height and weight?”), using the T-word is a function of our emotional readiness, not an issue of fact. Continue reading “The Antidote To Tyranny”

When law was sovereign

All of us in the modern West grew up believing that we were living under “the rule of law.” The truth, however, is that the rule of law – the sovereignty of law – ended a couple of centuries ago. And by losing it, we lost a primary driver of our civilization. Continue reading “The West That Was, Part 5”