Virginia police over-step authority

These kinds of stories are becoming so common as to hardly merit specific mention anymore, at least as “news.”  At this point the more crucial matter is taking account of the erosion of freedoms in this country.  In a kind of sequel to the Professor Gates outrage, in which Boston police harassed him long after [...]

Obama and prospects for change

Thanks to the Young Fogey, I found this piece from Justin Raimondo on the bellicose foreign policy team which Barack Obama is presently trying to assemble. A few months before the election, I was sitting in one of my favorite Belgian bars here in Philadelphia, batting the breeze with a friend. In a casual sort [...]

Albert Jay Nock on bees, etc.

It’s a pleasant surprise to see my fellow blogger’s current e-mail signature on display at the LewRockwell.com blog. Yes, that’s his entire signature.

Memo to pro-lifers: Stop being accessories to evil

Like many children of the Eighties from practicing Catholic families, I attended the National Right to Life March in Washington D.C. (I remember on one of these bus rides, I was exposed to the vulgar wonders of Eddie Murphy’s Comedian album, segments of which I can still quote to this day. But that’s neither here [...]

Learning the lessons of August 15

Today, September 11, is a day of much State-sponsored solemnity in memory of the terrorist attacks that took place here seven years ago. One will read and hear much pious civic claptrap, but undoubtedly there will be little soul-searching as to what might have motivated people to come halfway across the world to kill innocent [...]

Cindy McCain trips over the big, white elephant (pun intended) in the room

Cindy McCain is gushingly introducing her husband at the RNC, and along the way, she said that she was taught that there are two different ways to look at America: the way other countries see us, or what the Founding Fathers would make of us. Oooops. The Founding Fathers? At the Republican Convention???? Is this [...]

I like Justin Raimondo, but I hope he’s wrong this time

But that’s a long shot. This is the journalist who predicted the Georgia fiasco (and subsequent American lies) months if not years in advance. He now says that a strike on Iran is an inevitability. Are you as worried about the war drum beating as I am? Concerned that your friends and family are going [...]

Fred Thompson’s Gratuitous Violence

Last night I sat in stupefied wonder at the grotesquely detailed account which actor Fred Thompson gave of John McCain’s war service.  “Is Fred Thompson going to say anything relevant?” I asked a neocon.  I was ignored, of course. After telling us all about all of McCain’s tortures and injuries, down to every last scar, [...]

Defending ketchup

“Political Views: anti-war, anti-State, pro-ketchup,” says my facebook profile. “Why ketchup and not mayonnaise?” someone asked. Well, the truth is that this statement has nothing to do with ketchup’s relative standing with mayonnaise, but rather its relationship with war and the State. Here’s the gist of my idiosyncratic phrase: The State exists through usurpation. It [...]

Naomi Klein’s book on the Shock Doctrine

A few months ago a dear friend bought me Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. I think he knew that parts of this book would resonate with me, and they do. What the U.S. government and the CIA have done to promote “freedom” is despicable. The problem is that Klein is not doing a very good [...]