“Can you imagine how long it took for ignorant men and women to learn metallurgy? Or crop rotation? Or a hundred other things we can barely imagine being without? Our lives are advanced only because they created new ways of living and passed them down to us. Hundreds of generations of people just like us lived through dark times, fighting toward whatever bits of light they could find, opposed by others most of the way, to bring us where we are now. Someday our generation will also be gone, and we will have played – whether we’ve understood it or not – the crucial role of transmitting civilization to following generations. What do we want them to be like? How do we want them to live?” (03/03/26)
“This is no way for a constitutional republic to go to war. The ever-changing rationales, the failure to consult Congress, and Congress’ refusal to demand consultation and authorization, is an outrage no matter how this war ends. If the war and its aftermath are deemed successful, there will still be a price to pay as our system of checks and balances will seem to future presidents as even more of a dead letter. Conversely, if this ends in disaster, one could see a renewed effort to restore that system to prevent such calamities in the future. Everything unfolding in and above Iran depends on the consequences, intended and unintended, of one man’s unilateral decision to launch a war. In short, we’re all on blowback watch.” (03/03/26)
“Colin Gray, the father of Georgia school shooter Colt Gray, was found guilty of murder and manslaughter charges Tuesday in a case testing the limits of who is responsible for a mass shooting. The jury deliberated for less than two hours before convicting him on all 27 charges: Two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter, 18 counts of cruelty to children and five counts of reckless conduct. … Prosecutors accused Gray of buying his son an AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas present and allowing him access to that weapon and ammunition despite warnings that his son was a danger to others. Colt Gray, then 14, used that rifle to carry out a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on September 4, 2024, killing two teachers and two students and wounding nine others.” (03/03/26)
“Physicians are not interchangeable technicians. They are moral agents. In a free society, the government should not force a doctor to participate in a non-emergency procedure that violates deeply held beliefs.” (03/03/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Deborah Palma
“The governance of modern societies is in permanent tension between the immediate appeal of emotion and the need for enduring principles. Emotion — when converted into the driving force of state policy — frequently transforms into a mechanism of institutional erosion. The substitution of economic and moral principles by emotional imperatives does not represent a technical failure, but a profound philosophical divergence about human nature and the function of the state. In other words, policies based on principles are anchored in reason, empirical evidence, and the recognition of scarcity. On the other hand, political decisions oriented by irrational emotion disregard long-lasting structural effects.” (03/03/26)
“New York City’s congestion pricing program can continue after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s attempts to terminate it were unlawful — a financial win for the nation’s largest mass transit provider. US District Judge Lewis Liman found Tuesday that US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s move to end the program was ‘arbitrary and capricious.’ Liman, however, declined to issue an order blocking possible future attempts to stymie the program. The ruling means the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which sued in February 2025 to prevent Duffy from terminating the deal, can keep operating the program indefinitely, though the legal fight may continue.” (03/03/26)
