“For centuries, some of the most prominent advocates of socialism have spent their lives condemning the accumulation of wealth while privately amassing fortunes of their own. In many cases, they have even used revolutionary rhetoric as a vehicle to gain power and extract wealth from productive sectors of society. From Karl Marx to Vladimir Lenin, from Fidel Castro to Hugo Chávez, many of these figures denounced private wealth and entrepreneurship, despite the fact that few, if any, lived according to the austere principles they publicly promoted. Instead, many enjoyed lives marked by privilege, luxury, and the very economic advantages they claimed to despise. This pattern is not confined to communist regimes. In the United States, self-described socialists have often criticized wealth accumulation — until they themselves became wealthy.” (06/15/26)
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey
“I think we all believe in secure elections that protect every eligible citizen’s vote. Florida has made some practical changes. Some people call these changes voter suppression, while others say they render our elections safer. In April, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Florida SAVE Act. This law requires people registering to vote to prove their citizenship using REAL ID data. It also updates ID rules for in-person voting, requiring paper ballots to maintain a clear record, and increases penalties for violations, including those involving foreign interference.” (06/15/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Thiago VS Coelho
“Civilization does not usually fail because every participant is stupid, vicious, or indifferent. It fails because people are placed inside systems where the locally-prudent action sustains a globally-absurd result. ‘Moloch’ is Eliezer Yudkowsky’s name for these impersonal traps: arrangements in which nearly everyone would prefer a better world, but no individual can safely move there alone. The broad failures fall into three recurring types. First, the decisionmaker is not the beneficiary. A regulator, hospital administrator, licensing board, journal editor, or politician makes a rule whose costs are borne mainly by others. Second, there is asymmetric information. Someone knows the relevant fact, but cannot credibly transmit it through the institutional fog. Third, society is stuck in an inferior equilibrium: everyone responds rationally to the incentives in front of him, while the system as a whole remains inferior to another possible arrangement.” (06/15/26)
“If you touch one of the Democrats’ sacred cow nonprofits, they’ll start whining about how you’re attacking ‘civil society.’ But what if the sacred cow Democrats want to defend is actually a violent bull — one of the worst forces undermining civil society in America today? Democrats and their allies portray criticism of the Southern Poverty Law Center as a threat to civil society. That’s rather ironic. You see, the SPLC is an engine of the very fear and suspicion that are driving Americans apart. Conservatives increasingly fear that our opponents don’t just disagree, but actively despise us. The SPLC doesn’t just publish papers explaining why it thinks conservatives are wrong. No, this organization — which gained its reputation by suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy — puts its political opponents on a ‘hate map’ alongside Klan chapters, a map the SPLC says reveals the ‘infrastructure upholding white supremacy.'” (06/14/26)
“In my past two columns, I made the case for the Democratic Party to take the lead in pushing for Trump’s Impeachment. The majority of people favor firing Trump and the massive number of blatant, impeachable acts by the lawless, corrupt, violent, unstable, dangerous Tyrant Trump increases by the day. If it helps the passive Democratic Party leadership, constitutional law specialists agree that were the Founding Fathers (who signed the Declaration of Independence and crafted the Constitution against would-be monarchs) here today, not one would oppose Impeachment.” (06/15/26)
Source: Persuasion
by Dan Storyev & Maria Kuznetsova
“If Americans want to actually enact change, they seriously need to re-think their strategy. Take it from us: we both grew up in Putin’s Russia and saw well-intentioned protests fail to stop an aspiring despot. We know that authoritarians are typically unwilling to respond to the kind of protest No Kings exemplifies: loud, raucous, and ultimately harmless. These ‘festival protests,’ as we call them, are convenient for their participants. They are fun and usually do not require much sacrifice or risk. They also look good on TV and TikTok feeds. But they often achieve next to nothing. Why are so many people convinced they work?” (06/14/26)
“[O]n July 1, convinced that while Independence might one day be necessary, it was as yet premature, Dickinson rose to make his case against the pending declaration. Only by understanding the risks and terrors Dickinson predicted can we fully appreciate the courage of those who were determined to face them. Let us, as President Richard Nixon used to say, make one thing perfectly clear: Dickinson was no coward. He was brave and a patriot. When Britain adopted the Townshend Duties in 1767, it was Dickinson who inspired the opposition. It was Dickinson who, again and again, had served as penman and point man for the colonial resistance. Yet Dickinson also loved the mother country.” (06/14/26)
“If it’s June, then it must be Pride and straight people everywhere are celebrating how far you’ve come. You know, out of the closets and onto MTV. But what if you don’t particularly feel like celebrating?” (06/14/26)
“Can the Graham Platner whirlwind sweep Susan Collins out of one of Maine’s Senate seats? Scandalous Reddit posts, tattoos, sexting, rapid-fire accusations, and denials didn’t make it any easier for Gov. Janet Mills to mount a serious challenge against the harbormaster of a small Maine town north of Acadia National Park. Platner soundly defeated the two-term governor who steered the state safely out of the COVID-19 pandemic and stood up to President Trump. Mills’s name was still on the ballot after she pulled out of the Senate primary race on the last day of April. Yet she didn’t get even a sympathy bump from voters in what turned out to be a contest of Platner against Platner: the champion of the aggrieved working class vs. the man who lived online too much.” (06/15/26)
