“Black markets are often dismissed with prejudice by the general population due to the state’s conditioning that they are inherently immoral, unethical, and evil. Even when presented with evidence of the state’s hand as the root cause of violent outcomes — such as the prime example of alcohol prohibition — the average person continues the misguided belief that malum prohibitum is still a justifiable excuse for the state’s use of force. After all, if the legislature declares a voluntary exchange illegal, then the exchange itself somehow becomes immoral, and the state’s guns become virtuous. Black markets are condemned by habit, not by reason. The average mind has been trained to recoil at the term and to associate unlicensed commerce with violence, chaos, and predation. This is not only backwards but objectively false.” (09/15/26)
‘The biggest reason to oppose use of ALPRs is that they create an ongoing, persistent, nationwide web of warrantless search and surveillance that encompasses everyone who drives, without probable cause to believe that those drivers have committed particular crimes or even that those particular crimes have actually occurred. That’s something the government isn’t supposed to be able to do. It’s also something the government doesn’t NEED to do.” (09/15/26)
“President Trump has justified tanking the US economy by claiming the attack on Iran was essential because they were about to get a nuclear weapon. Our intelligence community disagreed, but he refused to listen and took his cue from Netanyahu instead. It turns out Iran actually does have a ‘nuclear weapon.’ That weapon is the ability to control the world’s oil flows at a margin high enough to cripple the economies of any country seeking to conquer it.” (09/15/26)
“I have studied scaremongering and the culture of fear for almost three decades. It’s clear to me that the current AI doomsday narrative recycles several older panics simultaneously. Just as with the invention of the nuclear bomb, humanity feared an invention it could not control. When computers and the internet were created, we feared technological displacement. And there is the older philosophical fear that humanity’s own intelligence could be the source of its undoing. Each time, a rational assessment of the potential risks is shoved aside in favour of a narrative of an impending apocalypse. Yet when it comes to AI, I have found the evolution of this carefully staged exercise in scaremongering different in some respects.” (09/15/26)
“On the right, the postliberal right or ‘beefsteak socialists’ (brownish on the outside, red on the inside) propose to use tariffs as devices for reorganizing industries, promoting civic virtues, and protecting workers from ‘globalists.’ … On the left, the Democratic Socialists of America are no longer a mere ragtag bunch of campus activists. They have great electoral visibility and competitiveness. … Normally, we could dismiss them all as cranks on the margin. However, the problem is that their views and policy proposals are frequently advanced in public.” (09/15/26)
“California should be the most fun place in America. Look at what we have. Beaches, lakes, mountains, parks, incredible weather, great food and music, and people from every part of the world. It should be almost impossible to make California boring. But the politicians and bureaucrats who run our state are doing their best! California was not built by killjoys. It became the world’s great magnet for artists, inventors, rebels and misfits because this was the place you came to create, experiment and live freely. Try doing something fun today. Want to put on a band at a small venue? You can end up dealing with separate rules for entertainment, dancing, sound, alcohol and zoning. Want to organize a block party? Get ready to deal with police, fire, health, public works and alcohol officials.” (09/15/26)
“This is the ordinary grammar of attribution in the sabotage era. A government states that its services and their partners have reached a judgement, allied governments affirm the judgement, the proof stays classified; and the citizen is invited to supply the trust that the missing evidence would otherwise earn. It may be that the classified material is overwhelming. It may be that it is thin. The structure is identical either way, which is precisely the problem. A public asked to accept an attribution on faith has no way to tell a strong case from a convenient one.” (09/15/26)
“In 1978-9, before the election of Margaret Thatcher, the top rate of UK income tax was 83%, and any income from investment was called ‘unearned income’ and had a 15% surcharge added, giving a top tax rate of 98%. At that time, the top 1% of taxpayers contributed 11% of income tax revenue, and the top 10% contributed 35%. Today the top rate of income tax is 45%. Now, using the most recently published data for the 2023-2024 tax year, the top 1% of taxpayers paid 28-29% of all income tax, and the top 10% of taxpayers paid 59-60% of all income tax. … When people talk of having rich pay their fair share, I imagine very few of them have any idea of what share ‘the rich’ are already paying. If the top 10% paying 60% of the total is not a fair share, perhaps we should ask them what figure they would consider fair?” (09/15/26)
“Across the country, a chilling shift is occurring. Political violence has become a twisted form of virtue signaling. Mahatma Gandhi is out and Luigi Mangione is in. For an increasing number of young people, nothing signals your values like a willingness to kill others for them. For decades, being nonviolent has been the touchstone for many on the left. Something is changing. On my campus and others around the country, students are rationalizing violence and even idolizing assassins. A recent Emerson College poll shows that 4 out of 10 voters between the ages of 18-29 (39%) view Mangione’s role in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as ‘acceptable’ or ‘somewhat acceptable’. Other polls show a troubling number of liberal voters consider political violence justified, including polls showing 40% of young people embracing political violence in some circumstances.” (09/15/26)
