“One of my favorite places on Earth, Greenland, has suddenly become the center of worldwide attention as US President Donald Trump reiterated his 2019 proposal that the US should do whatever it takes to acquire Greenland from Denmark. Trump’s interest stems from Greenland’s strategic location between the US and Russia, its large untapped deposits of oil, uranium, and rare earth minerals, and its control over Arctic trade routes, particularly the Northwest Passage, which is becoming increasingly navigable as Arctic sea ice disappears. … Because of my familiarity with the region, I knew immediately that Trump’s proposal would provoke a strong reaction in Greenland, where political leaders and everyday people alike see independence, not recolonization by the US, as their future.” (02/20/25)
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Anonymous National Guardsman
“I’ve served in the Air National Guard as a full-time Active Guard Reserve (AGR) for over twenty years. I’ve deployed overseas, responded to disasters here at home, and stood ready whenever my state or nation called. But today, I’m writing anonymously — not because I want to hide, but because I have to. You see, despite my decades of service, I’m not allowed to publicly support the Defend the Guard Act without facing potential repercussions. It’s a fine line we AGRs walk—full-time military professionals who are expected to serve quietly, even when policies threaten the very mission we signed up to support. Yet, while I must remain silent, I’ve watched two-star generals stand before legislative committees, in uniform, lobbying for policies that extend endless wars and stretch the Guard beyond its limits. The hypocrisy is staggering.” (02/20/25)
“Look around you. No doubt you see people doing things that don’t make much sense when you think about it. Middle-aged people (like me) talk about wanting to be healthy but then (like me) still too often eat like they’re still in High School. People talk about wanting a job and don’t seek one. People litter. People throw things away that could be recycled. There’s homelessness. Jobs are especially scarce for black teenagers. The world, it seems, doesn’t make sense because it’s filled with fools and knaves. If only we could find the right strong man or woman who can make a plan and make it work … A lot of that, I suspect, is the product of a price structure that rewards what looks like foolishness and knavery. When we get the prices right, however, what looks ‘foolish’ isn’t necessarily foolish, and what looks knavish might be relatively easy to explain.” (02/19/25)
“Last week, the American Conservative published an article by Scott Greer on Nashville as a city showing the way forward beyond wokeness. ‘What might replace woke as the dominant cultural form isn’t some return to tradition. It’s the culture and lifestyle embodied by Nashville,’ Greer writes. ‘Normal Americans just want to focus on the mundane and have a good time. Country serves as the soundtrack and Nashville as the vacation spot.’ Scott makes the all too common mistake of confusing the Nashville MSA with Nashville proper, but superficially, what he identifies as making Nashville palatable to people who want to live here is accurate. On top of the relative stability and lack of political drama, country music gives it a shine absent other places like Dallas, Atlanta, or Charlotte. But what I want to point out is that this arrangement is much more fragile than Greer or others might think.” (02/20/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Peter Jacobsen
“As we roll through the middle of February, we’re getting to the point of the year where most people start to abandon their New Year’s resolutions. According to research by Dr. Michelle Rozen, 94% of people fail their resolutions within two months. However, this doesn’t mean resolutions are a bad thing. New Year’s resolutions make good economic sense. People want to improve, but monitoring whether you’ve actually improved in something is costly. As such, using the beginning (and end) of a year as a benchmark provides a low-cost way of ensuring self-monitoring. Maybe many fail, but New Year’s provides a good place to start either way. For many, New Year’s resolutions involve reading more or losing weight. However, I’m noticing an increasing number of people centering their resolutions around hobbies.” (02/19/25)
“Last Sunday, 60 Minutes featured tyrannical German prosecutors boasting about persecuting private citizens who made comments that officialdom disapproved. Three prosecutors explained how the government was entitled to launch pre-dawn raids and lock up individuals who criticized politicians, complained about immigrant crime waves, or otherwise crossed the latest revised boundary lines of acceptable thoughts. In a craven slant that would have cheered any mid-twentieth century European dictator, 60 Minutes glorified the crackdown: ‘Germany is trying to bring some civility to the world wide web by policing it in a way most Americans could never imagine in an effort to protect discourse.’ Nothing ‘protects discourse’ like a jackboot kick aside the head of someone who insulted a German politician on Facebook, right?” (02/19/25)
“The past month has generated something close to despair in anyone who cares about effective governance as a force in people’s lives. Haphazard firings, rapid dismantling of vital government agencies, devaluing of basic science, and commandeering of government IT systems are all part of a power grab that threatens to turn our democracy into a cult of personality. It’s hard to imagine anything positive coming out of this. And yet. On Tuesday, the new leaders of the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division both released statements saying that they would continue to follow the 2023 merger guidelines, and not seek to make any changes to them, at least in the near future. Those guidelines reflect the understanding of antitrust statutes and jurisprudence as envisioned by Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter, the predecessors at those agencies.” (02/20/25)
“St. Felix publicly declared that he believed with 79% probability that COVID had a natural origin. He was brought before the Emperor, who threatened him with execution unless he updated to 100%. When St. Felix refused, the Emperor was impressed with his integrity, and said he would release him if he merely updated to 90%. St. Felix refused again, and the Emperor, fearing revolt, promised to release him if he merely rounded up one percentage point to 80%. St. Felix cited Tetlock’s research showing that the last digit contained useful information, refused a third time, and was crucified.” (02/19/25)
“The thing about Donald Trump is, he’s Donald Trump. Briefly set aside any old-fashioned moral considerations about Donald Trump’s low personal character — as a purely analytical matter, that low character is the most direct and comprehensive way to understand what it is the administration is actually doing. That ‘character is destiny’ is a political truism, but it is even more true in the case of Trump than in the case of most politicians, because Trump, being overburdened with an excess of self, has no political interests or values independent of his self-interest, which should be understood in terms that are only partly financial and in the main psychological. Whether as a politician or a peddler of knockoff watches, Donald Trump’s business is being Donald Trump. The notion that Trump is some kind of master negotiator is one of the silliest aspects of the Trump cult.” (02/18/25)
