Source: The American Conservative
by James W Carden

“Two years ago this October, Azerbaijan committed what had been, until the Israeli rampage of the past year, among the most egregious cases of ethic cleaning since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, when in the matter of days its armed forces took control of the Armenian enclave Nagorno Karabakh in which 120,000 Christian Armenians were forced to flee the land which had been their home for centuries. In the months that followed, Azerbaijan’s dictator, Ilham Aliyev, claimed that ‘present-day Armenia is our land.’ … Fast forward to the last week of September …. the U.S. embassy issued a statement that read, in part, that ‘the United States is committed to working with the Armenian government to assist those who have lost their homes and livelihood.’ Yet such sentiments are difficult to take seriously when roughly a week later NATO sent a high-level delegation to Baku to kiss Aliyev’s ring.” (10/21/24)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/nato-disgraces-itself-in-azerbaijan/

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“It takes a little time to warm up a bottle, and, sometimes, the wait is more than one of the little ones is prepared to endure, at which point there will commence ‘a veritable Wagner opera of alarm and distress and grief.’ I want to explain it: ‘You can have your bottle warm, or you can have it now. Choose one.’ But the babies aren’t having it — because they are, you know, babies. You, American voter, are not a baby. The American voter does not have that excuse — not that anybody would know it from observing him, listening to his absurd and incompatible demands, enduring his temper tantrums. You know the classic case: ‘I want lots of spending, low taxes, and a balanced budget.’ … Donald Trump’s imbecilic views on tariffs are based on the same refusal to accept inevitable trade-offs as is my hungry infant’s demand for his bottle before it is ready.” (10/21/24)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/voters-not-babies-130000916.html

Source: The Daily Economy
by Vincent Geloso

“As early as 1927, Ludwig von Mises spoke of statism as the ideology that gives primacy to the state over the individual. At that time, he had only glimpsed the beginnings of 20th-century totalitarianism. The worst abuses of Bolshevism were still largely hidden or still ahead, and Italian fascism was in its infancy. He used the French term etatisme to describe this primacy that led the State to take an ‘active and permanent part in economic affairs.’ But as totalitarianism gained ground and with the start of World War II, Mises realised that his definition was too technical — it missed why statists embraced their ideologies. Thus, starting with his (excellent) book Omnipotent Government, Mises began using the term ‘Statolatry’ to describe the sacralization of the state and the power it wields over individuals.” (10/21/24)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/stop-sacralizing-the-state/

Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan

“Per-capita, UAE is the most amazing country I’ve ever seen. With a population about the size of Austria’s, they have virtually every consumer product you can imagine (and many you haven’t) in abundance. In cleanliness and crime, UAE rivals Japan. While the official language is Arabic, a local told me that English is far more useful. And while the country’s official religion is Islam, the country looks very secular. I saw not the slightest sign of Islamist fanaticism. The key ingredient of Emirati success: 88% of UAE’s population is foreign-born. That’s the highest share of any country on Earth. Why is the share so high? Because UAE is closer to open borders than any other country on Earth.” (10/21/24)

https://www.betonit.ai/p/reflections-on-abu-dhabi-and-dubai

Source: spiked
by Tom Slater

“The narrative that is constantly being spun at the moment is that, as of about 10 years ago, politics was … perfect. It was consensual. It was moderate. Political parties might have disagreed around the edges, but they could come together under some core assumptions – and in their shared deference to technocratic expertise. Then the populists showed up and supposedly ruined everything. It’s certainly true that, prior to 2016, political parties only ever seemed to be dancing on the head of a pin, and often ostentatiously dismissed ‘ideology.’ But what has become abundantly clear is that that supposed consensus, that supposedly moderate settlement, was serving ordinary people terribly, and in some aspects was batshit crazy.” (10/21/24)

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/10/21/why-we-need-more-polarisation/