What Samuel Johnson said of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ can be said of 2025: No one ever wished it longer. As this year slinks offstage, remember some memorable moments: Cracker Barrel stumbled into crisis when many Americans who have too much spare time became enraged because the restaurant chain deleted from its logo an elderly man in overalls. … Elon (‘I’m not just MAGA, I’m dark gothic MAGA’) Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), which never existed (actual departments are created by Congress), went out of existence after streamlining the government, which you might not have noticed. … The president decreed that the Gulf of Mexico is the Gulf of America. In 1945, Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue was renamed Avenue of the Americas. Has anyone ever called it that? … New York elected a socialist mayor (‘free’ buses and child care and lots of other stuff).” (12/26/25)
“Quick review: the Greek forces had besieged the walled city for a very long time but failed to breach its walls. So they appeared to be abandoning the effort and sailing away. But only after constructing a great wooden horse, some kind of tribute to the gods. When they sailed away, the seemingly victorious defenders of Troy came out and decided that the huge wooden horse was a suitable victory monument and dragged it into the city. Of course, the Greeks had filled the body of the horse with a squad of elite warriors. … Today, various companies, institutions, and government agencies are playing a kind of game very similar to the Trojan Horse scam. A correspondent, Bob Malone, reminded us of this recently. It is called the ‘subscription economy,’ and it is a direct application of that evil Regressive claim that ‘in the future we will own nothing, and be happy about it.’” (12/26/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“In Brussels, we have witnessed a scene that has become increasingly common: protests by European farmers marked by escalating hostility, including burning tires and clashes with police. This discontent is the cumulative reaction to a process that has dragged on for more than 25 years, and is now being pushed toward completion under conditions that are deeply damaging to European farmers. Some invoke the benefits of free markets, and, under normal circumstances, these do indeed offer the best outcomes for both producers and consumers. The problem is that between European farmers and producers from Mercosur—a trade bloc that includes Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay—the market can never be truly free, because farmers in each bloc operate under fundamentally different regulatory conditions.” (12/26/25)
“here was a time when debates about determinism and free will belonged to philosophy departments and late-night dorm room conversations. They were enjoyable precisely because they seemed harmless. Whatever the answer, life went on. Courts judged, doctors decided, teachers taught, and politicians were still — at least nominally — held responsible for their actions. That era is over. Artificial intelligence has transformed what once appeared to be an abstract philosophical question into a concrete issue of governance, power, and accountability. Determinism is no longer merely a theory about how the universe works. It is becoming an operating principle for modern institutions. And that changes everything.” (12/25/25)
“The Christmas season is a time to reflect on what we have, which includes the kind of society that has made countless blessings possible. The warmth, security, and generosity that many Americans experience during the holidays are not accidents or pure gifts of nature. In their tangible sense, they are the products of a long and extraordinary period of economic growth — one that has expanded opportunity, reduced hardship, and given moral ideals room to breathe. History shows quite clearly that the societies most capable of generosity and liberalism are not those trapped in poverty but those that have escaped it. An abundance of wealth does not corrupt moral life; it enables it. Economic growth is not a rival to our highest values. It’s a precondition to their most vigorous pursuit.” (12/25/25)
“Nearly four years of war has profoundly transformed Russia. Fostered by state propaganda, many ordinary Russians have developed a sense of pride that Russia has survived in the face of Western hostility. This feeling has been fed by Western expressions of contempt toward the Russian people and Russian culture — insults that are assiduously quoted by the state-controlled Russian media.The Russian public struggles to see how the situation can be viewed from the other side and acknowledge that Western concerns may have grounds behind them; for example, the Kremlin’s attempts at meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections better explain the negative attitudes toward Russia in Washington, rather than pre-existing cultural prejudices. … Even though it was Russia that invaded Ukraine and that continues to attack the formerly ‘brotherly nation,’ many in Russia view the war as defensive in nature and inevitable.” (12/24/25)
“He’s easily triggered. He speaks on impulse. But where are the triggers? What are the impulses? Do the warps and perversions of Trump’s crude patois erupt from his subconscious? Or has Trump’s subconscious completely floated to the surface now and we are hearing directly from the fractured idiom of his Id? … Trump isn’t speaking in code so much as he is connecting at an instinctual level to a network of cultural affinities, prejudices and insecurities that exist beyond grammar and etymology and without which Trump and his followers would be lost. … Here then is a sampler of some of Trump’s most perplexing pronouncements over the last year. Good luck mining the meaning from the madness.” (12/25/25)
“We conserve capital, tend embers, make plans, and orient ourselves toward the future. Prosperity demands we tend the embers, rather than curse the cold.” (12/25/25)
“The year is 2029. President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, having spent years raging against Fox News as a propaganda organ whose very operation is illegal, has found a pressure point to control it. She enables its sale to owners who are friends of hers, and whose business depends on regulatory favors she has made a practice of doling out to allies. As the new editor in chief of Fox News, the owners install Tim Miller, a skeptic of conservatism who has never previously worked in television news. But then AOC complains that her friends at Fox News aren’t moving fast enough, and the network is still running critical coverage of her. Days later, Miller kills a long-scheduled report showing how AOC may have flouted the Constitution in order to have people tortured. It is safe to say, I think, that conservatives would be upset. … And they would be right.” (12/24/25)
