First licks in politics, first place in history
If you have not yet read James Douglass’s JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, do …
Monthly Archives: June 2017
Collapse of authority when authority deserves contempt
Don’t think it can’t happen here. Rather, don’t think it can’t happen twice. I’m not thinking about a second civil …
Views of progressive populism
Therefore make government weak, to make people happy and secure in their property. Make government passive wherever possible, because its activity causes misery. These principles never fail to enlarge liberty for those who make them their own.
When a patriot becomes a patsy: part two
Once you realize that Oswald worked for the CIA and FBI, and learn what he did for them, questions about Kennedy’s assassination begin to resolve themselves.
Danger everywhere
When you lay an accusation that someone’s views are dangerous, you say more about yourself than you might think. You suggest some views, and people who voice them, do not deserve protection.
Subtlety slithers its way into campus arguments about free speech
I wonder what Ms. Nowacki thinks about her own pattern of thought, and of those who agree with her. When did free speech become a pretext for recruiting terrorists and racists?
When a patriot becomes a patsy: part one
Many argue, “If all those conspiracy theories were correct, someone would have talked. Where are they?” A simple answer is that people have talked.
To solve political crimes, let’s talk about theories, and drop the adjectives
One recommendation you can’t escape: let’s drop the term conspiracy theory from our political vocabulary. Let’s drop the adjectives, too, like reprehensible, crazy, and dangerous.
When you go after a powerful person, use power to do it
The kinds of calculations most leaders make seem beyond him. His lack of political skills proved a big asset during both the primary and general elections, but this congenital deficit has not helped him since he arrived in Washington.
Vertical strength of skyscrapers
I’ve written a lot about how government officials lose trust when they conceal or destroy evidence of political crimes. The …
Why Edward Snowden remains important four years later
Government does not undertake its projects in secret for your benefit. It acts in secret for its own benefit, to protect its own power and privileges, and to commit crimes too serious and brazen to commit in the open.
Chelsea Manning; Safe Communities Act; Comey vs. Trump
Many Republicans and establishment types outside the party still want him, even expect him to act like a president. People wanted Caligula to act like an emperor, too.
The Jeffersonian 