This category covers posts with political content.
Paul “the Internet is not a big deal” Krugman has stated that it’s paranoid to worry about Central Bank Digital Currencies. See the article at this link.
Considering his track record, did he not realize that his statement makes it more likely that concern is justified?
A bunch of topics all together this time. What is the Macro Trick? It’s the combination of things that are fundamentally different under one name. It’s a tool that many tyrants and would-be tyrants use to take control of politics, economics, and culture.
It feeds the demand for administrators, technocrats, and other “experts.” In this video, I have a breakdown of some egregious examples of this trick, as well as what we can do to fight it.
Also available on Bitchute.
I saw a new ad from the awful-as-usual Brady Campaign (to Outlaw Handguns) and they’re pushing “Safe Storage” laws. Of course, this isn’t about safety, it’s about tyranny, so I thought I’d peel back some of the layers here and give it some light.
Video also available on Bitchute.
It seems like everyone is talking about secession these days. Whether they call it that, or national divorce, or some other euphemism, they all have opinions about it and most of them are woefully misinformed. Setting aside the ideologues who only want to tighten their grip on their fellow man for their own benefit, there are plenty of people who argue against secession from a practical perspective, but even these people often argue from a position of ignorance, and in this case, their ignorance is definitely not our bliss.
And, right on schedule, barely a week after I say something nice about James Lindsay regarding his evaluation of Marxist offshoots as cults and his studies into Gnosticism and its modern incarnations, he decides to spout off ignorantly about secession, parroting the most absurdly weak arguments all the while maintaining a childishly mocking tone against any and all opposing voices.
So, I’m finally cracking open my copy of Ryan McMaken’s Breaking Away, and getting to work on something about secession, because apparently even reasonably intelligent people are unable to understand how the principles of secession and radical decentralization are the most promising hope we have for peace and diminution of the state’s powers.
Expect a few essays/videos soon, including a review of Breaking Away.
…This comes right as I had had a great idea for something on the absurdity of taxing unrealized economic gains that looks like it might get put on the back burner, at least for a bit. Oh, well.
James Lindsay’s recent episode of his New Discourses podcast (ep. 108) talks about Gnosticism, related doctrines, and how they relate to modern neo-Marxist thought. By his own admission, he’s having trouble organizing his thoughts on the topic and he wants others to start thinking about them, so I made a summary with some commentary as an exercise.
I just heard that the great Yuri Maltsev has passed away this week–a huge loss for the world of liberty. Yuri was among the last to defect from the ailing Soviet Union, and the stories he told about doing research under the Iron Curtain are poignant reminders of the strangling effect that socialism and all forms of totalitarianism have on not just the economy, but free thought itself.
The White Pill isn’t what I expected, and that’s a good thing. Considering the pithiness with which terms like “white pill” and “black pill” get tossed around, Michael Malice could have gotten away with writing a witty but surface-level book about the importance of keeping a positive mindset. Instead, he has created the most insidious Tootsie Roll Pop ever–jet black on the outside, with a tiny chunk of white at the very center. The White Pill isn’t an anodyne book on optimism, but a deeply disturbing and detailed account of the rise and fall of the USSR and the Berlin Wall, with a few relevant side stories to keep things fresh.
The Libertarian Party has changed. In 2022, the Mises Caucus, a more hardcore libertarian group embracing anarchists and anarcho-capitalists as well as traditional minarchist libertarians, took over most of the Libertarian National Committee, as well as a majority of state parties.
A short response to a thought experiment posed by Tim Pool in which I believe his answer to the thought experiment is wrong. Tim asks a question about whether you or I would believe some of the more audacious events of the last 6-7 years would happen and says our answers would be “No.” But I respond that the nature of the state creates the motivations leading to these events and that, as long as the state claims the kind of massive power over our lives that it does, that all involved with it, the good along with the bad, are vulnerable to these kinds of motivations.
The only way to remove the motivation to use violence to gain control of the state, for good or ill, is to reduce its size.
The video I’m referencing by Tim Pool can be found on Odysee and Bitchute.